Cocktail Countdown Day 1: The Old Fashioned

Day One began with a trip to BevMo to pick up supplies. I was the only person in BevMo with children, which didn’t make me at all feel like a reprobate. But supplies were obtained, I found a recipe (this one), and it began:

The recipe called for Old Fashioned glasses, which we don’t have. (Although we do have many, many different types of beer glasses.) So I improvised with these:

I don’t think they’re technically Old Fashioned glasses, but they were my grandmother’s, which makes them old fashioned. 🙂 The recipe calls for you to muddle the sugar, cherry, orange rind, and club soda together. I didn’t have a muddler (and the club soda exploded when I opened it) so I improvised my smashing everything together with a spoon.

Then came the bourbon and as the alcohol fumes hit my nose, I had a flashback to cold white porcelain, run down, dingy bathrooms, and my stomach heaving like a boat in a storm. And I suddenly remembered why I don’t drink much hard alcohol: College.

But I am older, if not wiser, so I kept on with the challenge and produced this:

The first sip was… interesting. It’s supposed to be fruity and light, but really, it was mostly smoky and alcoholic. I offered a sip to Mr. Turner (he’s very skeptical of the challenge) and his response: “It smells like vomit. I got sick too often on this stuff in college.” (I’m not the only one with a misspent youth.) But he politely took his sip, then went back to his beer.

I made it through about two-thirds of this, before deciding that bourbon probably isn’t for me. Even in cocktail form. Too bad we’ve got another bourbon drink scheduled for tomorrow: The Manhattan. But maybe that’s the cocktail that will change my mind. (Otherwise, my brother is getting a slightly used bottle of bourbon next time I see him.)

Lessons learned in Day One: Don’t drink too much in college. You’ll forget all the knowledge you’re supposed to be acquiring, but will retain the bone deep, visceral sensation of your body rejecting the alcohol that you’ve subjected it to.

(Psst: There’s still time to preorder Star Dust— Amazon | iBooks | Nook | Kobo | Google Play)