Category: Drink

I opened the door to the back seat of my car and went to put my briefcase in but saw something out of the corner of my eye and stopped short.

A couple of times a week, when I stop at the convenience store to pick up some iced coffee, I will treat myself to one of the individually wrapped chocolate-covered graham crackers on the counter by the cash register. For reasons that remain obscure to me, I must have bought one, then tossed it into the back of my car the day before.

I picked it up and examined it. Although still hermetically sealed, it had clearly had a rough 24 hours. As it sat in the hot car throughout the previous day, the chocolate had melted. It had been cold overnight, though, and it had firmed back up. Not wanting to waste a gift from Past Me, I ate it before getting into the front seat.

“Look at you!” I said to it, as I unwrapped it. “You had a rough day, but you pulled yourself together, and here you are, back on the job. Thank you. I appreciate your work ethic.”

I was suddenly struck by a rare moment of perspective and clarity. I was standing in my driveway, actively working to validate the feelings of a graham cracker. I had clearly turned some sort of emotional corner.

So now, as I decompress from a week where I, too, feel as if I’ve been melted and refrozen and tossed aside, I would very much like a nice drink. Clearly though, my judgment is somewhat suspect at the moment. It is time to fall back on a classic, one that has weathered decades of this sort of week. Maybe something fizzy.

Sloe gin fizz

• 2 ounces sloe gin
• 1 ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• ¾ ounce simple syrup
• extremely fizzy seltzer – I like Topo Chico

Combine the sloe gin, lemon juice and simple syrup with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake thoroughly.

Strain into an ice-filled Collins glass.

Top with seltzer, and stir. If you have a bar spoon — one of the ones with a long, twisty stem — this is a good time to use it.

Garnish with one or two cocktail cherries. If you decide to use one, it will be a special occasion when you eat it at the end of the drink. I like to use two, though. I feel like this whole experience might be a bit traumatic to a cherry, and I like to give it some company.

Sloe gin is a sweet, low-alcohol liqueur. It is not too sweet, though, and could use a little help from the simple syrup to stand up to the lemon juice. The lemon juice, in turn, balances the sweetness and provides brightness to the endeavor. The seltzer dials back the intensity of the other ingredients and provides a spring-like fizziness. This is a delicately sweet, low-octane treat to start your weekend off, giving yourself at least as much validation as you would give to a graham cracker.

Featured photo: Sloe gin fizz. Photo by John Fladd.

I read a lot of travel books — mostly written by confused, bumbling Europeans trying to make sense of life in unfamiliar cultures. I think I like them because I generally feel confused, bumbling around in all cultures.

“Bon jour, mon frère,” someone says to the writer of one of the books. “‘Mon frère,’” he thinks. “Why frère? Why is he calling me his brother, instead of his friend? What’s going on? Am I in trouble?”

“Good morning,” the nice lady at the grocery store says to me, “have a good week.”

“What does she mean by that?” I wonder, for the next half hour.

At any rate, these travel writers say that one of the most frustrating, confusing and ultimately useful phrases that they run into is “Insh’Allah” — “God willing.”

“Will the work be done on time?” “Will I make it through this surgery?”

“Of course.”

Whew.

“Insh’Allah.”

Eek.

I mention this because my poor wife — and pretty much every wife, when it comes down to it, really — has to deal with a similar thing.

“Will you please do this simultaneously important and very easy task for me, please?”

“Of course.” Eventually.

Granted, the “Eventually” is unspoken, but it’s undeniably there.

Which is how we ended up with a basket of elderly blood oranges sitting on our counter, feeling their life force slowly flicker out and leak into the Universe. Nobody in the house remembers how we ended up with blood oranges in the first place. They are beautiful but not easy to do anything with. They aren’t great for out-of-hand eating. They aren’t very sweet. They have seeds. They have a nice flavor and could theoretically make a good marinade or something, but the blood-red color can be a bit off-putting. It really calls for being used in a cocktail.

So my wife was being more than reasonable when she asked me to please, for the sake of all that is good and decent, do something with the basket of blood oranges on the counter.

“Of course, my Delicate Persimmon Blossom.” *Eventually*

My wife sighed with tired resignation, an emotion that has come to characterize most of her interactions with me, her soulmate.

It speaks more to luck, rather than good timing on my part, that I caught the blood oranges minutes before they went bad.

Blood orange syrup

Zest some blood oranges, however many you have. Put the zest into a small saucepan.

Put the pan on your scale, zero it out and juice the oranges into it. Write down how much the juice weighs.

Tare the scale, then add an equal amount of sugar.

Heat the mixture over medium heat, until it comes to a boil and the sugar dissolves.

Remove it from the heat, let it sit for an hour, then strain it.

That’s great, but what do you actually do with blood orange syrup? Aside from adding it to your yogurt, which is great, by the way.

Blood orange tequila fizz

• 2 ounces blanco tequila – I like Hornitos
• 2 ounces fresh squeezed lime juice
• 1 ounces blood orange syrup (see above)
• 2 ounces ginger beer

Combine the tequila, lime juice and syrup over ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake ruthlessly.

Pour — ice and all — into a large rocks glass. Top with the ginger beer, and stir gently.

Sip cautiously — because let’s face it; you are deeply suspicious about this combination of flavors — and then feel relief and a tiny amount of trust in the Universe seep back into you.

The first thing you will notice about this cocktail is how beautiful it is. It is deep red and seems to make nonspecific but compelling promises to you. It tastes as good as it looks. The blood orange and lime work together to give you layers of citrus flavor. The tequila and ginger beer give it some backbone.

When you’ve had a hard week, when the kids are especially loud, when the other dance moms have gotten on your last nerve, when you find yourself wondering what the point of all of this *gesturing vaguely around* is, this drink will throw you a rope.

Featured photo: Blood Orange Tequila Fizz. Photo by John Fladd.

Spring means a lot of different things to different people:

Flowers

Mud

Taxes

Bunnies

Spring Break

When I was a college student, back in the Late Cretaceous, I had strong feelings about Spring Break. I had heard the stories about 24-hour beach parties, bacchanalian excess and overcrowded hotel rooms. I had dreams of going on a proper Spring Break, but each year I ended up broke and crashing on various friends’ couches, teaching them how to make piña coladas.

Admittedly, I was something of a low achiever in college. I was not smooth or popular. I never made the dean’s list. I did not break any hearts. I didn’t write much poetry.

What I did do, however, was master the art of making a piña colada. I prized my blender and through sheer repetition and practice could measure out the ice, rum, pineapple juice and coconut cream by eye, and make a roomful of college students with low standards very happy.

“Who’d you invite over, tonight?”

“Rick, Bob, Hugo, those three girls and their friends.”

“And—”

“And Fladd.”

“Ugh. Really?”

“And his blender.”

“Oh, OK, then.”

From time to time I’m tempted to make one of those college piña coladas, but just as there are television shows from my youth that I won’t watch for fear that Adult Me will hate them, I’ve been too afraid to make one.

But it is spring.

What if I made something that Adult Me would think tasted like spring but at the same time was strange enough that College Me would cautiously approve of it?

I give you —

The Pea-ña Colada!!!

• 2 ounces pea-infused rum (see below)
• 1 ounce pineapple juice
• 1 ounce coconut rum – I like Malibu or Coconut Jack for this.
• ½ ounce fresh-squeezed lime juice
• ¼ to ½ ounce simple syrup, depending on how sweet you would like this

Put on your most garish shirt, preferably something that will utterly humiliate your children.

Combine all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker. Tell your digital assistant to play “Margaritaville” at Volume 8. (Granted, you aren’t actually making a margarita, but the sentiments are just about perfect for this situation. If you can’t make yourself listen to Jimmy Buffet, ask for something by Van Halen.)

Put the top on your shaker, then shake until the ice cubes — and maybe your heart — break.

Pour, ice and all, into a rocks or small Collins glass.

Don’t make any plans for the rest of the afternoon, because this drink will go down very quickly, get lonely, and call for a bunch of its friends to celebrate Spring Break in your stomach.

OK, with all my industrial-strength reminiscing, I skipped over a detail that you might want to discuss a bit before actually making this drink:

“Excuse me? Pea-flavored rum?”

You heard me. Pea. Infused. Rum.

Here’s the thing: Against all odds, it’s delicious. The peas carry a spring-like herbaceousness that plays really well with the fruit juices. The coconut — which your own embarrassing memories lead you to expect to be too sweet — is actually restrained and tasty. Adult You probably doesn’t want a drink quite as sweet as you did in your salad days, and dialing in the actual sweetness with simple syrup will allow you to make this just perfect for singing really loudly. You might want to call an old friend on the phone and sing loudly to them, too.

Bright Green Rum

Add equal amounts by weight of fresh sugar snap peas and white rum to your blender. Don’t worry about snipping off the little stems and squiggly parts on the ends. Just wash them briefly and throw them into the pool with the rum. Go with a basic white rum for this. I like either Bacardi or Captain Morgan. The flavor of the peas will cover up any subtle nuances that you might want to savor in a top-shelf rum.

Blend the rum/pea mixture on a medium-low speed for a minute or so, so that the peas are chopped up really finely but haven’t been liquified.

Let the mixture rest for an hour, then strain it. It will be a vibrant, please-don’t-ignore-me shade of green. If you are so inclined, filter it through a series of coffee filters, which will tone down the color but leave you with the vibrant, pea-ey taste that you want for a proper Pea-ña Colada.

Featured photo: Pea-ña Colada. Photo by John Fladd.

It was my bragging that brought on my most recent identity crisis.

It was Monday morning, and someone asked what I had done over the weekend. Instead of using one of the responses recommended in the official small talk manual — “You know, same ol’ same ol’” or “Not much; chew?” — I was feeling a little bit full of myself and gave an honest answer:

“I was a little tired on Saturday, and I ended up taking a three-hour nap….”

The response was all I could have asked for — something along the lines of, “Wow. You lucky bastard!” — but it got me thinking. Is this what my life has come to? I used to have dreams and ambitions. I planned to travel the world, get a regrettable tattoo, learn to bungee-jump, maybe act as a courier, delivering a mysterious package to a country ending in “-stan.”

But here I was, bragging — bragging! — about taking a medium-long nap. Even by napping standards, three hours is not all that impressive; I remember crashing for 14 hours once, after a particularly long night. Eighteen-year-old me would be pretty appalled with how I have turned out.

This is a riff on a cocktail by Colleen Graham, in which run-of-the-mill gin is replaced with cucumber gin and the wasabi is bumped up to adventurous levels.

Adventurer’s Cocktail: Cucumber Wasabi Martini

• 4 slices of cucumber
• ¼ teaspoon prepared wasabi paste
• ½ ounce simple syrup
• 1½ ounces cucumber gin (see below)
• ½ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice

Muddle three slices of cucumber in a cocktail shaker.

Add simple syrup and wasabi. Muddle again.

Add gin, lemon juice and ice. Shake thoroughly, long enough to get halfway through a very groovy song.

Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with the remaining slice of cucumber.

Go out and seek adventure, like, I don’t know, fighting for a parking space at the gym or promising your daughter to go with her to the Barbie movie this summer.

Wasabi seems like an unlikely flavor for a cocktail, but surprisingly it’s the cucumber that does the heavy lifting here. The wasabi supports it, linking arms with the lemon juice and providing backup vocals. The sweetness of the syrup brings out the fruitiness of the cucumber.

It’s just really good.

Cucumber Gin

• Persian cucumbers
• An equal amount (by weight) of medium-quality gin — Gordon’s is my go-to for infusing.

Wash, but don’t peel, the cucumbers.

Blend the cucumbers and gin on the slowest speed in your blender. You are trying to chop the cucumbers finely to maximize the amount of surface area they have exposed to the gin, but you want them to still be in large enough pieces to filter out.

Store the mixture in a large jar, someplace cool and dark, for seven days.

Strain, then filter and bottle this very delicious gin.

Featured photo: Cucumber wasabi martini. Photo by John Fladd.

“Hi,” the lady in the apron says to me.

I look up from a pile of tangerines. “Hey. How are you?”

“I’m good. You?”

I fall back on my stock answer when I don’t really want to think too much about how I actually am: “You know how it is — the power, the money, the respect, the women. Frankly, it would crush a lesser man.”

“I can imagine. Are you finding what you want?”

And that’s when it hits me: What do I want? I have no problems that a rational man would complain about. And I realize that she’s almost certainly talking about my produce needs, not my emotional ones.

And yet—

What do I want?

I’m overwhelmed by an image. I’m on a bamboo veranda, overlooking the dark cyan* waters of the South China Sea. (*I looked it up later on a paint chip.) An overhead fan whooshes. A gentle breeze carries the scent of salt and white ginger. I’m reclining on something made out of teak.

This is all a bit much to lay on my new friend of 35 seconds, so I ask her where the macadamia nuts are.

Sill distracted by my tropical vision, I end up buying pineapple juice and paper umbrellas. It’s February. It’s time for pancakes and tiki drinks.

The pancake part is easy.

Pancake batter should be thinner than you think, as should the pancakes themselves. Fluffy pancakes are a false standard put forth by Big Pancake; go with the thin ones. You absolutely will not regret it.

The syrup is up to you, but there should be a small pitcher of melted butter. As for the cocktail —

Singapore Sling

• 2 ounces dry gin
• ½ ounce kirsch (cherry brandy)
• ¼ ounce cognac
• 2 ounces pineapple juice
• ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice
• 1¼ ounces cherry syrup from a jar of maraschino cherries
• 1 to 2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters
• 1 to 2 dashes orange bitters
• 2 ounces plain seltzer

Add all ingredients except the seltzer with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake until the ice starts to break up.

Pour, with your now-cracked ice, into a tall glass — the type is up to you. A tiki mug would work well. So would a Pilsner glass. You could make a case for a clean peanut butter jar.

Top with the seltzer and stir gently. Garnish with at least five maraschino cherries.

The first sip of a proper Singapore Sling is deceptive. You will wonder if you forgot an ingredient. Considering the pineapple and cherry juices, you’d think it would be sweeter. Should it be this pink?

Do you know what puts negative thoughts like that in the front of your brain?

Stress and anxiety. Also, February.

By your third sip, do you know what are losing their grip and slipping down your cerebral cortex? The Negativity Triplets.

This is what you need.

Featured photo: The Singapore Sling. Photo by John Fladd.

A different way to sparkle on Valentine’s Day

It’s Valentine’s Day, and you want to create an amazing dinner for the one you love, but your food and wine skills need a little help. You want it to be special and not just a DoorDash or Grubhub delivery. You want to be themaster of the meal. After all, it is a special day that deserves that special meal, prepared, and not purchased by you!

For this special day, I chose to go to a venue to shop for that perfect dinner: Angela’s Pasta and Cheese Shop, on Chestnut Street in Manchester. I have patronized Angela’s since their very beginnings on Union Street in 1980, through their move to Chestnut Street in 1994, and I can’t begin to count the number of times I have been there. I have cultivated a taste for the different homemade fresh pasta, along with the variety of imported dried pasta.

If you can boil water, you can make pasta. Pick up a jar of sauce, or better, some Angela’s homemade sauce, fresh bread, and you are on your way! A salad or antipasto completes the meal, which can be finished with luxurious chocolates.

What kind of wine goes with pasta? A dry sparkling wine goes very well with a cream-based sauce like alfredo or if the pasta is simply dressed with extra-virgin olive oil and freshly grated Parmesan. A good cava from Catalonia is the perfect match for this dinner. The cava can be opened along with the antipasto course and will continue to pair well with the pasta. If there is a drop or two left in the bottle, it will work nicely with rich dark chocolate, as its minerality and high acidity will contrast nicely with the rich, creamy, smooth texture and intense flavor of the chocolate.

A 2019 Sumarroca Reserva Brut, available at Angela’s at $19.99, is the perfect accompaniment to this meal. This cava is made from 100 percent pinot noir grapes that grow in the Sant Sadurní d’Anoia region, just a few miles west of Barcelona, Spain.

According to the website for Bon Vivant Imports, a combination of several microclimates throughout the fields where Sumarroca wines come from, generated by warm climatic influences from the Mediterranean coupled with protection from the Montserrat mountains, and more than a dozen different soil types, makes for a wide range of still and sparkling wines from this region.

The bubbles rise in the glass, are persistent and tickle your nose. I agree with Bon Vivant’s description that the wine has aromas of wild strawberries, raspberries and slight floral notes of rose petals with flavors of cranberries and rhubarb. As advertised, this is a very crisp, dry and refreshing cava.

Featured photo: Photo by Fred Matuszewski.