Well Tea and I were back at it this afternoon — making another round of Old Man Drinks interspersed with too much fun and our own twist on what a cocktail this time of year should look like.  Love it!

First nice surprise of the day is that we had some really beautiful sunshine rather than the rain that had been predicted.  Tea got here this afternoon and we headed over to a Stella & Dot jewelry party at a work friends house.  It was great.  She lives in this really lovely home in one of the cool old neighborhoods of our city.  Brenda is gracious and welcoming on her worst day and knocked it out of the park today with yummy appetizers and good wine.  And the Stella & Dot collection was really fun.  We might even host our own party. Wanna come? : )

At the house then we started in on . . . pumpkin bars!  See there, you were thinking cocktails but I like a bit of the unexpected and pumpkin bars have been calling our name.  The recipe I’ve got is super easy and the two of us cook well together.  I get busy digging the ingredients out and before I know it Tea has it all mixed up and in the oven! I got my recipe from a woman I used to work with and Tea and Glen agreed they deserved high marks.  I really like how moist they are and that they’re not too sweet.

Then we got busy on our Old Man Drinks with a Halloween twist.  Actually we only did a couple of Old Man Drinks and then we did a couple more modern cocktails of our own making. Besides having fun giving each drink a seasonal twist, the most fun we had was trying the very old fashioned liquor, Absinthe.  To our surprise it tastes, and smells, quite a bit like licorice but has a kind of glowing green color. Absinthe was actually illegal to sell in the US for years but now its easy to find and all the components that reportedly caused hallucinations seem to be left out — if they were ever really there.  Either way, the liquor has a residual mystique that adds to its fun and its perfect for Halloween. We balanced our beverages out with a big bowl of popcorn and grilled cheese sandwiches and declared the day a winner.  Check out these vintage and modern drinks — all of them perfect for any Halloween party you might be throwing this weekend.

Obituary
Could there even be a better name for a Halloween drink?  I mean really.  This one isn’t being gimmicky or anything. I don’t know how it got its name but it started out as a martini that someone added absinthe to and the Obituary was born. Surprisingly, we liked it — me more than the others — but the absinthe is a strong flavor that balanced out the gin. And this is easy to make: 2 oz good gin with 1/4 oz dry vermouth and 1/4 oz absinthe. Next Halloween I might make me another. : )

Monkey Gland
What a horrible name huh?  Is it any surprise that this drink died off? It’s popularity peaked in 1923 and I’m doubting we’ll see a comeback anytime soon.  But it had a real pretty color and the taste was pretty darn decent really. Plus, it too was super simple to make:  2 oz. gin with 1 oz orange juice and a dash of grenadine and absinthe.

Absinthe
This is absinthe in its purest form straight out of the bottle and absinthe as they tell you to serve it.  You’re supposed to put it in a glass, put the absinthe spoon over the glass (comes with the bottle), put a sugar cube on that and then add cold water to melt the sugar cube into the glass.  Pretty dang cool.  We felt like we were in some backstreet  bar in old Paris! Just for the briefest second of course.  : )

Bloody Scary
Do you love it?!?  This is just your typical Bloody Mary with a great new name and made with black vodka.  The perfect drink for a Halloween weekend brunch.

Candycorntini
This was our own creation and quite tasty — whipped cream vodka, dash of orange juice and a nice pile of candy corns for decor.

Dracula’s Bite
Fun and refreshing — coca cola, grenadine, and more black vodka. Easy and fun!

Hey and to top off the day as Tea left, Brian arrived — direct from Portland.  And get this — he ran another full marathon today (he makes it look easy!) and shaved almost a full hour off his last time!  Razzle and Dazzle!

Well I know the combination doesn’t sound all that good but we found the two — cupcakes and cocktails —  to go together quite well actually.  I struck the jackpot when I got not just Tea and Glen like usual for our Old Man Drinks testing but our other kid Brian as well! And because we border on crazy at all times anyways, we figured what the heck, I had a new kind of cupcake mix, why not try them out at the same time?  So I put Tea to work on that while I pulled out all the ingredients for a marathon mixology session.  All four of us had a great time and I’m pleased to say, this time, unlike the horrible last session, most of our drinks tasted pretty darn decent and scored pretty well. Before we talk drinks though, let’s talk cupcakes. The new Fun da-Middles to be more specific.

You probably won’t be surprised to hear I was excited about these when I spotted them.  I mean c’mon — they say FUN in big letters on every box. I am totally in.  They are clearly meant to be a homemade version on the Hostess cupcake but I have to say for me personally, I prefer the mass-produced, store-bought Hostess version. I don’t know.  These were okay but not spectacular.  We didn’t put frosting on them and maybe we overbaked them a tiny bit, but for whatever reason, they tasted a bit on the dry side (like most my baking!)  Still, they couldn’t have been too bad because the boys ate them all. And I have to say I think I would try them again just to be sure of what I think of them – and because I really like the name.  : )

Now the only proper thing at all to have with a cream-filled, warm, chocolate cupcake is a glass of milk but instead we had a Bloody Mary!  And an Arnie Palmer, Fine and Dandy, Jack Collins and Mint Julep.  Oh yea, we are crazy people.

So, you might be surprised to hear that across the board we gave them all a score of 3.5 to 4 (out of 5) with one exception.  The drink I was most looking forward to trying, that has such a high reputation and huge anticipation by Tea and me scored the very lowest in this round of our Old Man Drink testing and that was the .  .  . Mint Julep!  Can you even believe it?  I mean a Mint Julep sounds like nothing but fun. It sounds like a lovely little, fragrant, easy-to-enjoy, light beverage that you sit sipping on a hot summer day while sitting on your porch watching your neighbors pass by. And I think that perhaps the Mint Julep of modern day is a bit sweetened down and made to be that easy kind of drink – but not the original.  Not the julep the old guys of yesterday drank.  Oh no. Instead, the Mint Julep they liked was very heavy on the bourbon and light on everything else and we all ranked the drink a generous 2 out of 5 with big doubts we would ever choose to order and pay for one.  Yes on the fragrant mint, big no on the bourbon heavy julep.

Still, a giant size yes on the fun level.  We had a great time trying this round out and were pleasantly surprised with most of them.  But still, all said and done, give me a big old glass of milk to go with my cupcake!

The ingredients for an Arnie Palmer were super simple — pretty much equal parts ice tea and lemonade with a dollop of vodka.  A great summer time drink for out on the hot golf course kind of refreshment.

Glen was our official Bloody Mary taste tester.  This was a good recipe but we decided it could have used a little heavier dash of Tabasco and it would have been a bit better with tomato juice than the lighter V8.

This was a refreshing drink but the best part, by far, was the name — a Fine and Dandy.  Dandy was more than happy to pose with it despite the fact that we wouldn’t let him partake!

One of the best parts of working our way through the Old Man cocktail book has been getting to use bitters.  There’s all sorts of different kinds and despite their name they are fragrant and more refreshing than bitter.  The smell alone, enhances each drink.