Indecision addled your brain? Bust outta the funk with liquid experimentation taken straight from today's headliners and top mixologists. Results are guaranteed to make you remember why beer comes before liquor. ...
TUBBY TOASTED! TUBBY TOASTED!
Want to regain that lack of inhibition you last had when you were a toddler? Seeking blind faith in the warm voice coming from your own personal speakerphone ("Time for Tubby cocktail!")? Wanna see the little bunnies, the baby in the sun and the rolling green hills of Teletubbyland all the time?
Well, here's a little sumpin' sumpin' to light up the TV screen on everyone's belly. Celebrate this year's fastest-burning pop culture comet again! Again!
Recipe:
1 part Midori (Dipsy)
1 part Blue Curacao (Tinky-Winky)
1 part lemonade (La-La)
1 part Hawaiian Punch Red (Po)
Mix well, serve over ice, close your eyes, drink it down. You may find it sickly sweet and distasteful now, but soon you, too, will be hooked.
IM-PEACH-MINT
Don't let this year get away without a drink memorializing the Prez's legal hassles. When you're facing the prospect of going down on a couple of these cock-tales, you can't help but get bombed. Write the recipe down in case you can't recall in the morning.
Recipe:
2 parts peach schnapps
2 parts peppermint schnapps
1 part bitters
1 part sour mix
Serve straight up, garnished with impeachment papers.
CALL HIM "THE CHAIRMAN"
Okay, okay, sure, it's just a martini, but think of Frank and Dean sippin' on 'em at that big floating craps game in the sky and you'll feel just a little warmer as the year winds down.
Recipe:
2 ounces gin
1/4 ounce dry vermouth
Stir vermouth and gin over ice cubes in a mixing glass. Strain into cocktail glass. Serve with a twist of lemon peel or olive, if desired.
— Courtesy of Mr. Boston Official Bartender's Guide
CASINO
Taste the future, Detroiters! The Wonder Bread Building is in transition and Trappers Alley is undergoing its facelift. Get used to it — gambling's on its way, maybe not in the new year, but certainly by the (official) millennium. To paraphrase Mary Poppins, a shotful of liquor helps the medicine go down.
Recipe:
1 ounce gin
4 dashes maraschino liqueur
4 dashes lemon juice
4 dashes orange juice
Serve over ice.
— Courtesy of Flora's Recipe Hideout
SUAVE KAMIKAZE
M. Cougar Mellencamp, mixologist extraordinaire and skin pounder for Detroit's Wildbunch, takes a professional pride in introducing you to his non-champagne bevvie of choice for the New Year's Eve festivities.
Recipe:
3 1/2 oz. Cuervo
1/2 oz. Triple Sec
1/4 oz. Rose's Lime
Chill, serve straight up.
ALMOND SHAKE
Neil Yee, owner of Detroit's Gold Dollar,bucks the dual traditions of boozing-it-up and raking in the dough of thirsty cocktail hounds this New Year's by keeping his bar closed. Yee, instead, will partake in his own thirst-slaking by imbibing almond shakes available only from the Cass Corridor Food Co-op.
"It comes in a bottle and it's just almonds," says Yee, "but it's somehow liquid."
Recipe: Purchase almond shake, chill, open bottle, drink.
Variation: Purchase almond shake, chill, open bottle, pour into glass, drink.
