She would sometimes make a variant by adding a few fresh strawberries to the pitcher near the end of the muddling process so they'd be broken up but not pulverized. These were also very nice.

BTW - I've never experienced a particularly bad hangover from cachaca. Then again, I only really feel the pain if I drink too much red wine.

Everclear.

'nuff said.

This recipe is intended to hide the fact that there's alcohol in it at all. It's vodka and lucozade, a 1940's alcopop.

I just think they're a waste of booze.

(Getting a proper marguerita is hard enough these days. Most places, you get something closer to spiked lemonade.)

The basic format I was taught was:

1 1/2 oz +/- tequila [preferably good tequila...]
1/2 oz +/- triple sec [any kind will do, but blue Curacao adds an interesting, otherworldy cast to the drink...]
1 1/2 oz +/- lime juice [If you like, this can be Rose's, rather than fresh--or you can squeeze a fresh wedge in with the Rose's for added aroma]
Shake over ice. Rub the rim of a glass with a lime wedge [or lemon if trapped in a lime-free-zone, and it's an emergency], and dip it in a saucer of coarse salt. You may add ice to the glass and strain the drink over it, or just strain the drink into the glass, depending perhaps on local temperature. It's a fairly easy extrapolation to a frozen margarita, requiring only a blender, but I'd rather not go there.

Lime-lovers have been known to toss the squeezed lime shells in the shaker, to get more of the oils into the drnk. YMMV.

(1) Buy a bottle of decent vodka-- Stolitchnaya will suffice.

(2) Transfer half of bottle to a separate container.

(3) Assuming we're talking about a 750 ml bottle, add to the bottle 188ml of fresh-squeezed lime juice and 188ml of triple sec. (If not, the relevant ratio we're looking for is a simple 2:1:1 by volume.)

(4) Freeze. Keep an eye on it-- it'll turn into a Slurpee if it gets too cold.

(5) Put two martini glasses and bottle into briefcase. Pack chunks of dry ice around them.

(6) Storm into mentor's office, feigning urgency and rage. When you have mentor's full attention, put briefcase on desk and open. If executed correctly, said mentor will bug eyes at the sight of a briefcase filled with smoking white rocks and radiating an unnatural chill. (This works even better if the mentor has all the technical and scientific expertise of a golabki-- and thus, for all he knows, might be looking at solid chunks of plutonium.)

(7) Get thoroughly bombed with mentor.

(8) (Optional.) Explain that this is the Leonard Michaels Memorial Kamikaze Run, using a recipe and procedure developed in 1989 by someone or another at UC Berkeley.

(So, Teresa, are you going to explain to these fine folks why you happened to be looking at a ten year old humor digest in the first place?)

My wife and I have developed a lovely recipe for Sangria that also makes a great party favor.

The only thing that makes it daunting is the yield sizes: generally in the multi-pound range, described as "Six large loaves", "five dozen dinner rolls" and the like.

The Best Fresh Margaritas
Makes about 1 quart, serving 4 to 6

The longer the zest and juice mixture is allowed to steep, the more developed the citrus flavors in teh finished margaritas. We recommend steeping for the full 24 hours, although the margaritas will still be great if the mixture is steeped only for the minimum 4 hours.

4 tsp grated zest plus 1/2 cup juice from 2 to 3 medium limes
4 tsp grated zest plus 1/2 cup juice from 2 to 3 medium lemons
1/4 cup superfine sugar (berry sugar)
pinch salt
2 cups crushed ice
1 cup 100 per cent agave tequila, pref. resposado
1 cup Triple Sec

1. Combine lime zest and juice, lemon zest and juice, sugar, and salt in large liquid measuring cup; cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until flavours meld, 4 to 24 hours.
2. Divide 1 cup crushed ice between 4 or 6 margarita or double old-fashioned glasses. Strain juice mixture into 1 quart pitcher or cocktail shaker. Add tequila, Triple Sec, and remaining crushed ice; stir or shake until thoroughly combined and chilled, 20 to 60 seconds. Strain into ice-filled glasses; serve immediately.

These are so good, but more than two will knock you on your ass.

Satan's Whiskers (straight):

1/2 oz each-

gin
dry vermouth
sweet vermouth
fresh oj

1/4 oz-

Grand Marnier

1 dash orange bitters

shake w/ice, strain into a chiled glass.

If you want the Whiskers curled, use Curacao for the G.M.

El Paso Chile makes a bottled margarita mix based on key limes and Meyer lemons that is worth checking out.

Teresa, do you have something good in an eggnog, perhaps with a low sugar version?

Anyway, those really are amazingly good. I don't spring for the reposado, but they're still delicious -- and astonishingly strong.

Having had a blood orange margarita in a bar once, I decided to try it at home, subbing about 2/3 of the lime/lemon juices with blood orange juice I'd squeezed. I highly recommend this experiment to you. The nifty bonus is the improbable color of the drink.

(It's been about 8 years or so.)

Also, I should probably know this, but are we talking about fresh whole cherries, fresh pitted cherries, canned cherries, maraschino cherries, or what?

Meanwhile:

Why I was looking at a ten-year-old humor digest:

It was one of those "ships that pass in the night" things: Stephan Zielinski and I both had our writing in that same Yucks Digest, back before either of us knew who the other was. (I assume we each knew who we were by then. It wasn't that far back.)

Stephan's bit was one of his turns as the Usenet Oracle:

Date: Thu, 29 Sep 1994 14:55:12 -0400
From: bostic
Subject: Windows is filling your sinuses with lucite and letting it set.
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com

Forwarded-by: stripes@uunet.uu.net (Josh Osborne)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:

> Dear Oracle, master of all knowledge, what does UNIX stand for?

And in response, thus spake the Oracle:

} Ken Thompson claims that UNIX is "a weak pun on Multics," but this is
} a lie. UNIX is a weak pun on eunuch. Look around you. Are any of
} your male peers ever going to reproduce? And if their significant
} others DO become pregnant-- will you not doubt the identity of the
} father?
}
} UNIX is not all that impressive an operating system. Why, then, is it
} so popular? *UNIX is addictive!* And, just like heroin, the UNIX
} drive quickly displaces the sex drive. (Oh, sure, computer geeks talk
} a lot about wanting to get laid... but do they ever *do* anything
} about it?)
}
} Yet terrible as UNIX addiction is, there are worse fates. If UNIX is
} the heroin of operating systems, then VMS is barbiturate addiction,
} the Mac is MDMA, and MS-DOS is sniffing glue. (Windows is filling
} your sinuses with lucite and letting it set.)
}
} You owe the Oracle a twelve step program.

Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1994 04:20:02 -0600
From: qotd-request@ensu.ucalgary.ca (Quote of the day)
Subject: Quote of the day
To: qotd@ensu.ucalgary.ca

English can most charitably be described as a generous, expansive, and flexible language; a less charitable description would characterize it as drunk and disorderly.

-- Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Kiwi and tequila is good, but it isn't a classic anything. I call it a Kiwi Pip. Good with dry Gin too.

If you used Rum, you could call it a Daiquiri, I suppose.

An older saying, obviously, but I'm still geekily fond of it.

2 parts cranberry juice
2 parts pineapple juice
1 part vodka
1/2 part Amaretto
1/2 part SoComfort
1/2 part Jack

So named because you'll fall to the earth, useless, when consumed.

From Uncle Hornhead, via the Eschaton Recipe Exchange.

MKK--who just doesn't like the taste of tequila

Tequila? Isn't that made out of cactus? Good lord.

On the somewhat stronger front, I'm fond of punsch, once called the national drink of Sweden:

To make 2 liters of punsch:

Ingredients:
1 liter vodka
1 bottle of arrak (37 cl)
1 liter white sugar
6 dl water
1 tablespoon pressed lemon
3 tablespoons of madeira
0.5 ml tinctura aurantii
1 tablespoon of cognac
3 tablespoons of rum
approx 2 tbsp strong tea (non-flavored)

Proceed thusly:
Boil water and sugar to a syrup. Let cool. Mix the syrup with vodka, pressed (and preferably strained) lemon and tinctura aurantii.

Add madeira, cognac and rum under eager tasting until the punsch has achieved a character you like. Add tea until the punsch has a lovely golden color. Taste again to assure yourself you've succeeded.

Pour into well-cleaned bottles and leat stand for at least 14 days but preferably half a year to a year.

Serve either well chilled or hot.

As the folks who conducted the experiment say,

"Realize however, that science is not cheap, and neither are our medical bills that may in the future be incurred in order to recover from science."

It should be put in sturdy crocks, covered with several layers of cheesecloth to keep bugs out of it, and put in a nice dark room AT ROOM TEMPERATURE, NOT REFRIGERATED (which in Chatham County could range into the nineties, depending on the season) to let its ingredients get properly acquainted for AT LEAST SIX WEEKS. [HINT: The purpose of all that fruit and brown sugar is not to sweeten this brew but to add fuel for it's kick to grow! Refrigerating it would slow that process to the point of ineffectiveness -- not a good thing.] Of course, it may be tasted from time to time along the way (connoisseurs were reputed to have built revolving rooms for this purpose) but, fair warning, no amount of tasting will make one immune from its effects!

One may substitute strong black tea for the green tea.

Maraschino cherries, please, drained or not, your choice. I put in twice the number of drained ones this recipe calls for, then put in fresh ones and fresh canned unsweetened pineapple on the day of serving.

A pint of Benedictine in this recipe's proportions, added with the brandy is excellent.

I reduce the gin and the brandy to 2-3 quarts apiece.

The wine should be a fine madeira, not catawba. Catawba was a poor man's substitute for the imported madeira that improved from its European origins by traveling by sailing ship over the Atlantic and by further aging in Savannah area wine cellars. The catawba wine was homemade from local grapes and does not compare with the fine madeiras of old. However, it was popularized during the Civil War era when the Artillery became a unit of the Confederate Army and shipments of wine from Europe were halted by the Union blockade.

The amount of champagne to use is definitely a matter of personal taste. I think this recipe has it about right. Some local restauranteurs and families double the amount, while some families add only about half of what this calls for. Too little and you rob the potion of its accelerant. Too much and you dilute its kick and the taste becomes overly dry.

Ice is best a block or ring in the punchbowl with the chilled punch served sans ice by the punch cupful. (More than two punch cups is considered treading dangerously into the land of no return.) However, if you're into bottling up your finished punch (without the champagne) and serving it over time, it's fine to add the champagne at each serving and put it over ice.

It's natural for it to look muddy. It turns a truly horrid color if you try to dye it green for St. Patrick's Day -- but it still tastes great! I suggest dying some pineapple green and adding green maraschino cherries instead of red ones instead of coloring the punch itself.

In answer to the question:

I was under the impression that Rose's was sweetened. Where abouts do you live?

Thanks also to you and everybody else for Making Light in my life. Time to go to bed now - we're leaving early tomorrow and it's a long drive from New Mexico. California and family, here we come.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Celebrations to all of you. Good night and 'see' you in a few days.

Teresa, I'm quite sure this punch recipe was via the same Scott Dorsey who created that habanero ice cream recipe I posted ages back. (It's still a small Internet, and was smaller yet in '94.)

Recommendations for non-HFCS-based grenadine would be most welcome, too.

Also, a recipe for grenadine syrup here whose ingredients are pomegranates and sugar, but I imagine it could be adapted to start from commercially available pomegranate juice instead.

I've made a pomegranate syrup like that (a cup of sugar to a cup of seeds, let sit overnight, heat, etc). It's a heavy enough syrup that it won't freeze solid, so you can keep it in the freezer. Makes nice pomegranate-ade, although the cup-to-a-cup ratio calls for added lemon juice because of the built-in sweetness (and adding the lemon juice kills the color).

6 Liters (L) Catawba wine
4 L black tea
2 750 ml rum
2 750 ml rye
1 L gin
1 750 brandy
1 375 B&B
2 L (from 1 lb) maraschino cherry juice
2 lb light brown sugar
2 L/qt OJ (NO pulp)
2 L/qt lemon juice

Please, no fruit. Dissolve the sugar in the hot tea before adding it. Let it sit around for a few days. Makes about 6 gallons, about 47 proof.
ie 1 glass punch = 4 beers; 2 glasses punch = 1 glass vodka. I like to fill a 16 oz glass half way with well crushed ice, add punch to cover, then fill the rest of the way with diet orange dry (Polar). Others float champagne; some just drink it straight.