Week of March 7, 2010

My friends!  All apologies for the delays between posts.  The end of last week ended up being a confluence of a crushing amount of work at the office, cleaning up the place for the impending St. Patrick's Day celebration, and admittedly, taking full advantage of the spring-like weather.

50 degrees feels like 80 degrees after the winter we've had.  And Barca, the Official Mascot of The Amateur Mixologist (a soft coated wheaten terrier) was having a blast outside.

Here's what is on tap this week - as always, the drinks have been picked at random (all pages from The Ultimate Bar Book):

Brandy Champagne Cocktail (page 151 - drink #1)

Pedro Collins (page 271 - drink #3)

Irish Coffee (page 403 - drink #1)

Toreador (page 301 - drink #3)

A few thoughts about the above.  It is an utter coincidence that we'll be making Irish Coffee so close to the greatest Irish holiday of the calendar year (OK, you caught me, I can't name another Irish holiday).  Coincidence or not, I'm definitely excited about the Irish Coffee, as it is a favorite drink of mine, usually made by way of eye-ball measurements and probably far more alcohol than the typical recipe requires.

I'm a little tepid about the Toreador - the ingredients of which are pretty much just tequila.  There are some other items, but they contribute so little to the drink, that I may simply be giving tequila yet another chance as a stand-alone drink (like scotch neat).  I've tried tequila on its own two other times, with mixed results. Maybe the third time is the charm.

Looking forward to trying them all, and will probably start mixing on Monday evening for an early Tuesday morning post.  Until then, I'm heading to an Oscar party in a seersucker suit - that's right - seersucker.  I'm ushering in spring a touch early, and throwing out the rules of style.

My pick for best picture is The Hurt Locker.  Even though they've had some rough press of late, between their producer bad mouthing Avatar, and soldiers questioning the authenticity of the movie, I just think it's the likely winner.