Mixology Monday, January 2014: Highballs

TGIMxMo!

Really. Makes me quite happy to get back to blogging along with this rambunctious collection of crazy cats for the best cocktail party on the web. Even better? This month's hosted by one of my fave Tweeps, the Renaissance Man Joel of Southern Ash blog, where you'll find cocktail and fine dining recipes to cigar reviews to examinations of sartorial goodness. He brings us the perfect thematic answer to the post-holiday rush: Highballs!

“You need three ingredients for a cocktail. Vodka and Mountain Dew is an emergency.”

-Peggy Olson, Mad Men, The Summer Man (2010)

Highball – n. 1. a long iced drink consisting of a spirit base with water, soda water, etc

-Collins English Dictionary – Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition.

For this month’s theme, I thought we could strip away the complexities of cocktails and relax with a nice highball. As Ms. Olson so eloquently put it, most cocktails are at least three ingredients with the highball relegated to emergency or last resort status but in those highballs we will seek refuge. The end of the day is sometimes better served by a simple liquor plus mixer combination than an artfully measured Corpse Reviver No. 2 This month, tell us what you’ll do with a liquor and a mixer (with maybe a wee bit of garnish) to ease into the new year.

When active, this link will send you to the summary post of this month's festivities.


So highballs, huh? Short, sweet.. Base anna mixer. Let's see how weird we can make this.


"The Eskimo boy, after a brief period of time as an Alaskan crabber, became a Goth." -

Pinky Carruthers
3 dashes Dr. Adam's Dandelion & Burdock bitters
1 part Monkey Shoulder blended scotch
3 parts Bundaberg guava soda
blood orange wheel

Build over ice in a highball glass. Gently stir and garnish with the blood orange wheel.

There's a very distinct "I know I've tasted this flavor note before, but where?" emergent flavor. I wanna say it's a type of "strawberries and cream" from the sweet-tart guava and scotch barrel notes. It's both bright and earthy, and the soda isn't as sweet as you might expect - a little weightier too, but I like that added oomph during the winter, and it's still refreshing.

And in all technicality, it fits the criteria for a Wonder Twins highball, a concept I've bounced back and forth with our dear host on the Twitters from time to time. (form of...a monkey! form of...guava soda!).

Cheers and congrats to Joel for hosting a blessed and refreshing theme and to Fred, whose lasso-wrangling skills would outmatch New Jersey any day.

Remember: No matter where you go, there you are.

See you, space cowboy..