Fraters Libertas

Ginuwine article

There's a piece in today's WSJ about the latest bar trend: chucking food into mixed drinks, giving them a cutsey name and then charging 12 bucks a pop.

Blue cheese, cucumbers and pieces of ham are showing up in cocktail glasses. Chili peppers, avocados, figs, truffles, cream cheese, graham crackers, fish, gels, foams and flowers are swimming in gin or cognac or champagne.

The Journal is reporting that behind this trend is a flood of new specialty beverages hitting the market. Fifty-three new cordials and liqueurs were introduced in 2002, versus 18 in 2001. Four times the number of flavored vodkas and rums were introduced in 2002 as in 1999.

There is a name for all of these dippy, fruity and just plain silly things: Chick Drinks. Can you imagine a group of dudes walking into a bar and saying "Hey barkeep a round of Raspberry Amerettos over here!"? I should hope not.

Now I am all for any drink that will entice a young lovely to over-imbibe and perhaps find my conversation more palatable, but this is getting out of control.

Here are a few examples from the piece:
-- The "Avocolada" and the "Avorita," dreamt up by the California Avocado Commission
-- A restaurant in New York is selling "Caketails" and "Pietinis" including the "Amaretto Cheesecake," containing cream cheese, amaretto liqueur and graham cracker crumbs
-- A New York bar is pushing the "Titanic" a concoction of mashed grapes, a syrup made of elder-flowers and vodka with chunks of champagne sorbet floating on top

All of this is a little too precious for my taste, but never one to miss out on a trend, I've come up with my own concoctions that are a little more man-friendly and could easily be on the menu at any bar in Wisconsin:

The Budwitzza:
Ingredients: 10 ounces Bud, 1 ounce pizza sauce, 10 small chunks italian sausage, 1 ounce mozzarella.
Directions: Take a highball glass and add the sausages as you would ice. Next, add the pizza sauce and the beer and mix vigorously. Top with mozzarella and serve.

Hens On The Ice:
Ingredients: fried eggs, gin, ice cubes
Directions: Fry three small eggs in a pan. Make sure they are not sticking together. Set aside. Take 6 ounces gin and the ice and put into a proper martini shaker. Shake for at least 10 minutes to fully infuse the ice with the gin. Pour gin into a large martini glass. If you have shaken correctly there will be ice floating on the top. Add fried eggs one at a time to float on the surface. Garnish with pepper and serve.

Attention Keegans Pub--no need to thank me after these items become a hit. Sometimes genius is it's own reward.