Drew's Holiday Cocktail Guide
As you all may have figured out by the site, books, blogs, Power Hour videos, tweets, and general lifestyle: I’m a fan of booze. Not to the extent of my younger days, but then we can’t stay flammable all the time. Got to have something to look forward to on the weekends. Now with the holidays upon us, I know many of you are off to see families or work events where pounding a full bottle of wine is seen as “unprofessional” or “a desperate cry for help”. Well fear not, readers, for I am here to provide you with some festive drinks that celebrate the holiday season while also allowing you to get torn up when your racist uncle starts getting political.
Eggnog
Hang on, hang on, don’t call me fucker and click the “X” just yet. I’m not talking about store bought shit. That is basically flavored milk… which to an extent is true of all eggnog, but it’s really true in those cases. Homemade Eggnog is a whole other entity unto itself. I thought I hated eggnog for the longest time, then my family started crafting its own, and that shit has become a holiday staple. Without fail, every year, we whip up a batch only to have a guest say they don’t like eggnog, to which we reply that yes they do; they just don’t know it yet. And we have yet to be proven wrong.
Now, for our purposes what makes eggnog so great is that you must put booze in it. Literally, it’s a core component. The alcohol cooks the raw egg yolks like lime juice in a ceviche, ensuring no one gets sick. So with a drink that’s going to smell like bourbon regardless, you can easily slip a floater of whatever size you like in there and it will look/smell about the same. Eggnog is a perfect concealment device for hooch, allowing you to chug however much is necessary to forget about how itchy that “ironically” ugly sweater you’re wearing is. Plus, when made well, it is fucking delicious. In fact, I think I’ll have some now.
Fire-Cider
This is the easiest thing to make, because it’s two ingredients and one cooking apparatus. Ready? Take a bottle of cider, pour it into a crock pot, and then add Fireball (or cinnamon whiskey if you have a different preferred brand). How much Fireball? Well, how good do you want the party to be? I like to start with half a bottle then allow people to add floaters as needed, but you do you. Turn the crock pot to low, leave it for about 20 minutes, and when you come back you will have a delicious warmed cider that has a hint of a punch, but doesn’t betray the powerful amount of hooch inside.
As mentioned above, this is a great one to pair with floaters as it will smell/look the same as the normal glasses people are drinking. Be wary of this drink, however. Make it too strong, and the rest of the family might accidentally get tipsy as well. No one needs to hear Grandpa start talking about what words he used to be able to say back in the “good” old days. You know your family and their tolerance, choose your amounts wisely. Mmm, this has put me in the mood for Fire-Cider though. Be right back.
Wine
Man, wine is great, right? So tasty, comes in bottles, and hey, drinking it is considered classy. You can go whole fucking hog on some wine and who’s going to notice? I’ve got a bottle right here, well what’s left of a bottle, and damn does it vanish quickly.
You can also fortify your wine with a little clear liquor; let’s say vodka, to bring on an extra punch. The taste is… hang on let me take a sip. Yup, that’s fucking terrible. But hey, it still looks like wine, and that’s what really matters. Just pound it fast and try to disguise the wincing on your face with every sip. After the first few gulps, the enhanced wine actually gets easier to drink. Weird how that works, huh? Hey, is this room hot to anyone else? How strange. And where did the rest of my wine go?
Shots
You know what, fuck it. Rather than hiding what we’re doing, let’s own that shit. Sit at the dinner table dead-eyed with only a bottle of booze and a shot glass, steadily downing one drink after the other. If that doesn’t scare away conversation, I can’t imagine what will. And this booze is delicious, it goes down smooth, there’s really no downside here to-
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Mimosas
Shhh, not so loud. Okay, so perhaps my earlier entries on this list were a tad ambitious. After an intentional nap, definitely not a drunken passout with my face on the keyboard, I’ve considered that perhaps one doesn’t need to hit it quite that hard at family gatherings. In the event that you do, however, then you’ll be faced with mankind’s oldest and most powerful enemy: the hangover. Here, we turn to our ancient guardian, the mimosa. Its delicious carbonation makes the act of drinking it feel good, and the orange juice’s acidity hides the flavors that might trigger our hangover into rejecting more booze.
Should you, somehow, be in the mood to still really fucking crush it, then one can easily turn a mimosa into a screwdriver hybrid by adding a splash of vodka. But maybe do that sparingly, it is the holidays after all. Unless your family also parties, in which case go fucking nuts. As for me, I’m taking mine normal now; the last few entries showed me the folly of pride and ambition. No more hard drinking for this fellow today.
I mean… unless anyone else is in the mood for eggnog?
Post-Script: As much as this blog was obviously a joke, I really do advocate the deliciousness of eggnog. I can’t share my family recipe on here as the elders consider it a secret, but I can point you to the one person whose recipes I trust implicitly, Alton Brown, and he happens to have a recipe for this very drink. Enjoy! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/eggnog-recipe2-2013745