A Drink By Any Other Name
Even if I enjoyed having a Sex on the Beach (the drink), I would probably feel too embarrassed to order one in public. Luckily my aversion to peach schnapps precludes me from asking the bartender for a cocktail named after an uncomfortable erotic act. Seriously, have you tried it?
The Sex on the Beach was popular in the vodka-schnapps drink era of the 1980’s, as were cutesy-sexy cocktail names you never wanted to hear your parents order. We had the Fuzzy Navel, the Freddy Fudpucker, and the Slow Comfortable Screw. Sadly, these drinks seem almost quaint now as many cocktail names have become downright dirty. One online drink database lists 327 drinks with the word ‘sex’ in the name, and there are probably seven cocktails named for every position in the Kama Sutra.
Luckily, not many of these drinks make it into popular circulation, and the ones that do are generally served in nightclubs where commanding the bartender to give you a Reverse Cowgirl ends well whether it’s served in a glass or in the back of the coat check room.
Overly cute cocktail names are only slightly better. One bartender friend makes every drink a ridiculous pun that makes you feel like a fool for requesting. The worst was the Cardamom My Dearest. (If you don’t get that reference you may not be this publication’s target audience.)
Some drinks have the wrong name entirely, which only bothers cocktail dorks like me. I get huffy when cocktails are called a flavor of Martini- Chocolate Martini, Apple Martini, Orange Martini, whatever. I have a theory that this naming schema was popularized during the late 1990’s dot-com boom when every job title changed to superlative like ‘diva’ or ‘guru’ whether or not they were deserved. You had the mailroom guru and the accounts payable diva getting together for a Death by Chocolate Martini.
These not-really Martinis are usually vodka plus a flavored liqueur with a splash of fruit juice and a slathering of sugar on the rim, so I suppose they do belong in the same category as each other - just not, in my opinion, in the Martini category.
When I create cocktails, which is more often than I’ll admit in polite company, I try to name them sensibly so I can remember what’s in them the next day. I’ll make a Strawberry Mojito or a Fizzy Lemon Daiquiri and be done with it. But if my new drink doesn’t closely resemble another one, I’ll try to use an acronym for the ingredients - like the COP with cognac, orange liqueur, and pear. The problem with the Sex on the Beach is that its ingredients - vodka, orange juice, peach schnapps, and cranberry - don’t spell a word no matter how you arrange the letters VOPC.
Then again, neither does LGBT, and we all know what the ingredients are in that. Maybe we should consider re-branding ourselves like an easy-to-pronounce drink instead - it could be a great PR move. People will whisper, “Is it true that he’s really Pink Delicious?”
Making Your Own Mixers
Today’s nightclub bartenders can mix most of their drinks in a few seconds with one bottle, one squeeze of the cocktail gun, and one slice of pre-cut dried-out lime, but an increasing number of mixological enthusiasts are starting to party like it’s 1899. Way back when, there were no sour mixes and no Daiquiris-in-a-can and no sodium benzoate in the maraschino cherries. Bartenders of old had to soak, boil, preserve, pickle, clarify, juice, squeeze, and otherwise make their own mixers and other ingredients in cocktails. Bartenders of new are getting into it too.
My cocktail nerd friends are judgmental and cruel, which is why I like them, and they’re now at the stage where they must outdo each other with the most labor-intensive, time-consuming, completely unnecessary ingredients and techniques. “So I see you’re using store-bought triple sec,” they’ll say. “How pedestrian.”
The descent into this impressive obsessive behavior that ends in barrel aging homemade bitters in the basement and ordering Peruvian cinchona tree bark off the internet for fresh-brewed tonic water usually begins simply enough, and usually with simple syrup. That’s just sugar and water mixed together. Add the syrup to some fresh lemon and/or lime juice and you’ve not only got homemade sour mix, you’ve got the ingredients to make basic vodka or gin Gimlets, Whiskey Sours, Lemon Drops, Daiquiris, and other drinks. Not bad for two fruits and sugar.
The next phase begins when you look through gourmet cocktail books (the kind that list a couple hundred recipes instead of a couple thousand) and realize how many other flavored syrups you can make at home with fruits like pineapple, herbs like thyme, pomegranate for grenadine, and ginger for homemade ginger ale. Then it’s on to fancy garnishes like smoked salt rims and real maraschino or brandied cherries.
A quick search of the internet will quickly drive you nuts, as you realize there are hundreds of other things you could be making like liqueurs, tinctures, and a zillion types of bitters. You may find yourself brining your own olives (a process that takes weeks and can involve dangerous chemicals), stuffing them with gourmet (organic, local) cheese, and dropping them into a Martini stirred with homemade vermouth.
Next thing you know, you’re digging up the yard to plant garnish. I live in California, so I am able to utilize my lemon tree for limoncello, plant mint in the yard (caution: it takes over) for Juleps, and harvest my Chia Herb Garden to make basil and cilantro Gimlets. I think globally, and drink locally.
One talented bartender friend of mine won an international cocktail contest with his version of a berry Shrub, an American Colonial era drink that involves soaking fruit and spices in vinegar and salt for two weeks. (It tastes much better than it sounds.) I offered him my congratulations on winning the contest and said, “So I see you’re using store-bought vinegar.”
Camper English is a cocktails and spirits writer and publisher of Alcademics.com.
