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.
