Drink Four - Daiquiri

I've been watching a lot of the Olympic coverage.  I'm a sucker for the Olympics, always have been.

There are some weird aspects to the Vancouver games, namely, the important events are tape-delayed despite occurring in the same hemisphere, and the fact that the US has dominated the medal count - something that hasn't happened since the 1930's.

First, I think NBC does a pretty good job with the Games.  I think an argument could be made against one network covering the games, as opposed to multiple networks, but I'm not going to get into that discussion.  As the sole broadcasting entity, I think NBC is well positioned to show its US audience a lot of sport on its various channels.  Apart from the ABC/ESPN, I can't think of another network that has as many stations that comprise their available stations.  This allows NBC, among other things, to show curling on CNBC - which is pretty cool.

Even though they have a large number of channels upon which they can show the events, NBC has chosen to tape delay broadcasts for prime time.  I don't like NBC's decision.

We all find out results by way of the internet, or other TV or radio broadcasts, whether we're seeking them out or happen upon them.  It's inevitable with all the media available in this day and age.  And yet, tape delaying events presumes that either this is not the case, that we won't find out results, or, that even if we know the results we will watch the event anyway. 

The former is obviously incorrect - we do find out results.  That is, unless we go well out of our way to avoid the news.  We're talking log-off-the-internet level avoidance, given the breadth of news options available at every turn.  The latter is true for many, and would seem to be a good reason to go ahead and show the event live and in primetime.  I believe that the Games are performing really well in prime time, so what the hell do I know.

In my opinion, NBC should show important events live, and if warranted, repeat them in prime time.  What's wrong with that?  In doing so, people can choose to see the event live if they are able, and anyone else can avoid the news until primetime to see the big event.  NBC has at least 4 stations in which to broadcast events.  Use them!

Second, the US has been very successful in this year's Olympics, leading in the overall medal count and the number of gold medals won (or are at least tied for most gold medals at last count).

At one time, Nordic countries won medals because as Dan Jansen famously said (and I'm paraphrasing) "a lot of these sports are grocery store trips in these other countries."  It's weird when the US wins winter sport medals over Norway, Finland, and Switzerland.

And it doesn't hurt the American team that newer sports have been added that the US is particularly good at, like the half-pipe and mogel freestyle (which was introduced into the Olympics in the 1990's).  None of this is to say that the new sports are bad.  I love watching the half-pipe, I love watching mogels freestyle, I love watching ski-cross.  I think all of these sports have their place in the Olympics.  If you look at each of these sports individually, one can see why they belong, and we can safely root for our home team's athletes. 

In the aggregate though, particularly when the US dominates the Olympics in a way it traditionally has not, the Olympics begins to look like an Americanized-event, and less-so a world event.  I want the US to win, but not at the expense of whatever international quality made the Olympics so appealing in the first place.

Alright, let's drink.  Today we're making daiquiri's - very exciting!

Daiquiri

The Ultimate Bar Book, page 260

2 ounces light rum
1 ounce fresh lime juice
1/2 ounce simple syrup
Lime slice

Shake the liquid ingredients vigorously with ice.  Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.  Garnish with the lime slice.

For this drink I used Bacardi Rum, Nellie and Joe's bottled lime juice, and completely took the easy way out and bought some Simple Syrup (that's the name on the bottle - it's made out of Nantucket).  I normally would have made the simple syrup - it is after all just water and sugar - but I really wanted to make chocolate chip cookies!!  No time for both this evening.

This is the first time I've used this bottle of Bacardi Rum.  I think I bought it from Costco 5 years ago, thinking "Hey, someday I'll need some rum, so I might as well buy a handle of rum."  Well, 5 years later, I was right.  

I might be pulling out the bottle far more often because this daiquiri is freaking good, and tart.  Very tart.  I tastes kind of like a lime-aid frozen drink.  There is little alcohol flavor as the rum is heavily masked by the lime juice and simple syrup.

And this is nothing like all the daiquiri's I've had in the past.  Now granted, they were overwhelmingly of the "strawberry" variety, but still - this is very different.  I can't get over how little alcohol I can taste.  You could finish off quite a few of these without realizing you're downing over a shot of rum in each glass (and these aren't big glasses).

As a kid, my family didn't go out to eat all too often, but when we did, typically at some family restaurant, my brother and I would order non-alcoholic strawberry daiquiris.  They were the highlight of eating out!  They were slushy and sweet, and probably now, as an adult, entirely undrinkable.  But back then - whoah buddy - you could have given me a keg of strawberry daiquiri and I would have been cloud nine, tapping that sucker like it was water in the Sahara. 

Just like the Sidecar, I will definitely have to bring this one back out in the summer.