Stir & Strain

low rent cocktail

Low Rent Cocktail of the Month: A Shot of C

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emergency-lrc-1I have a small staff that I manage at my day job. They’re an amusing lot. Conversations tend to be about food, not surprising considering where we work, my confessions of trashy tv I’ve been watching lately and occasionally cocktails. The other day my main assistant, or at least the one I yell over at the most, was describing “cocktails” that he and his roommates make at home and immediately I figured I’d use one for this month’s LRC.

Besides the obvious Red Bull and Vodka which I believe was one of their first choices for drinks at home, one rather timely cocktail for this winter was the combination of Emergen-C and vodka. To paraphrase my assistant, “It’s surprisingly good”.

So in the name of curiosity, here we go…

1 packet of orange flavored Emergen-C
2-1/2 oz. vodka, chilled

Mix the two in a small rocks glass and shoot it back. No need to sip this one.

While this “cocktail” isn’t made with real citrus, it is close enough to fit in with the current theme of citrus cocktails. Right? Right. There’s vitamins in there somewhere.

Flavor-wise you’re looking at what you’d expect to taste with one of those vitamin packs, backed by a throat-ripping burn of vodka. FYI, do NOT ever drink this room temp.

emergencypack

Low Rent Cocktail of the Month: Texas Tea

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Beer doesn’t find its way into my cabinet very often. I enjoy the occasional Michelada at a brunch, and even rarer I’ll go for a nice sour beer over at the Verdugo bar in my neighborhood. But I’ll never ask for it out anymore. There was a time when I’d get a Stone, or an oatmeal stout. Now I’d rather make a beer float, or seriously, beer mousse with that Young’s Chocolate stout. Oh man, so good.

However, there are times where you’re just going to have beer to deal with. This recipe actually stems from a house warming party about 5 years ago where my husband wanted ONE drink to be had at the party. I’d never heard of it before, but he insisted on something called Texas Tea. This was just around the time that PBR was making its way into every hipster joint in Los Angeles. Or at least it felt that way.

If you want cases of something at your party, PBR is the way to go. It’s cheap. You know what else is cheap, limes. Your #2 ingredient in this cocktail. In fact, it’s only two ingredients.

Even stranger, it’s really quite refreshing.

I tried actually doing some research here and seeing if I could find something along the recipe that we used that day, but mainly Texas Tea brings up a drink akin to a Long Island Iced Tea. And some rather crude non-drink related articles. This cocktail though really does not require that much thought. It can be tweaked according to your own tastes so the recipe is rather a set of guidelines for you to follow. It’s also now being dubbed Hipster Soda.

1-1/2 cans of PBR, or most of one tall boy (just how much can you fit in that stein of yours?)
2-3 limes
ice

Grab yourself a rather large beer stein. You know you have one. It’s in a box marked “college” somewhere. Squeeze the juice from two or three limes and add the spent shells to your stein. Add ice about 2/3 of the way up the glass and pour the PBR over the whole thing. Throw one back.

Why so many limes? For me it makes it more palatable. For your drunken college kid, you’re making a real cocktail here. Enjoy.

Low Rent Cocktail of the Month: Overnight Adult Slushie, in green

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Do you like to get girl drink drunk?

Let’s acknowledge that these drinks are not for people who enjoy drinks. It’s that spoon full of sugar… For kids on spring break, or those yard-long plastic glasses mainly filled with sugar and a thimble of alcohol. You like those drinks? This one is for you.

I’ve seen ‘adult’ frozen beverages done well. There seemed to be a surge of adult popsicles and the like this summer. This is not that. This is a drink you throw together when picking up after a party on a hot night, throw it in the freezer, and enjoy all over again the next day. And now, just when I was breaking out the sweaters and scarves, DAMMIT, it got hot again in L.A. This drink would have come around early September, but didn’t get a chance. So now for your sugary, neon buzzing pleasure– I give you your Low Rent Cocktail of the Month.

One night at a party someone brings you as a mixer a brightly colored soda. Let’s say it’s Watermelon Kiwi. And then you throw some vodka in and call it a night.

Right before you pass out, you empty the rest of the vodka into the last third of that soda. And since you’ve run out of ice cubes you toss it in the freezer.

In the morning, you re-discover this concoction in there and in lieu of a cup (none are clean anyway), you cut off the top and stick a straw in. Or two. Hey, that random person still in the house might like a cold drink as well.

1 cup vodka
3 cups of a fruity, all sugar, soda pop (save the bottle)

The flavor will all depend on what your base is. Or what mixers you had the night before. In this case, it tasted like Pop Rocks!

Low Rent Cocktail of the Month: throw some tequila in it

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For reasons I cannot fathom, because it’s not like they were the best of times in my life, I was reminiscing over my high school days and what we used to drink. While many kids start ‘experimenting’ in college, when I was 16 my parents moved us from the city, where I could amuse myself with all sorts of culturally stimulating activities due to a public transportation system that took me places, and plopped us out to the country. Where I was smacked with the realization that going out to a quarry to get drunk and light an abandoned car on fire was about as good as it was going to get (I sincerely hope I am not offending anyone that I know who did/still does this. We’re adults and can ponder this tragic comedy of circumstances). This new set of stimulating activities caused me to experiment on pretty much a weekly basis. Heavily.

During this heyday of debauchery in my early years came my early starts in amateur ‘mixology’. This was due to an intense dislike of beer that necessitated moving straight up to hard liquor pretty quick. And the sweeter it tasted, the better. I remember a dozen or so concoctions that I came up with and pounded down because I couldn’t help thinking, and proclaiming, this stuff tastes AWESOME.

The thought of reliving these recipes now makes me gag a bit. However, I still find the idea of these low brow concoctions fun in a sort of ironic way, I just couldn’t think of any reason to put them on here. Until now.

When my husband was in college he had a weekly ‘column’ (I guess it would be considered a column) where he came up with the ‘Low Rent Cocktail of the Week’. Perfect. He quite willingly relinquished the name for me to use here, I told him he can guest post of he wanted to. And so now I can bring you guys some quirky, kinda ridiculous, concoctions.

First up is just a random ‘fix’ to an incorrect drink from Starbucks for my husband. I have been told to stress here that an iced green tea was ordered and what was incorrectly delivered was a passion iced tea. I guess the fruity purple drink was just not cutting it, so it was thrust into my hand with the direction to ‘fix it. Maybe throw some tequila in it’. He could have just poured some tequila in, but seemed convinced that I could make it more palatable. I gave it a shot.

1 grande sized iced passion tea, unsweetened
2 oz of tequila (on hand was Partida Reposado, but whatever you got is fine)
juice of 1/2 a small lime

lime wedge for garnish (optional)

Mix all ingredients together in your cup on hand. If you’re feeling the need to garnish, a slice of lime will do. It’s sweet and tangy, and will do in a pinch for a summer cocktail.

So, here is the first of a probably semi-monthly exploration. I have never touched Boone Farms, so you will not see that here. I have heard of Strawberry Wine, but I hated wine too until I was around 22. I do think though that I need to unearth some Rumplemintz, my bottle of choice when I was 17. And red bull in anything should certainly have a place in this category.

What filth were you swigging in your tender young years? I’d love to hear about it…