The Limey

4 1/2 oz Absolut Citron
2 1/4 oz simple syrup
3 limes, cut into eighths

Muddle limes in syrup; add vodka and stir. Pour into two chilled glasses rimmed with sugar. Add crushed ice and a lime twist.

Absolut emailed a Caipiroska recipe to me; I made some minor alterations to the ingredients, and changed the name (in honor of my British husband).

Maybe, just maybe, I need to increase the quantities (while retaining the ratios). This drink disappears so quickly, and I'm so sad when it's gone! The recipe listed above might actually be better as one drink instead of two...

• Nose: limes!
• Taste: sweet and limey and citrusy and very, very drinkable
• Looks: like grassy hills in early spring as the snow melts away
• Goes with: some sort of spicy chips, and a hot sunny afternoon
• Rating: 7.5 out of 10. Not quite as amazing as the Raspberri Martini, but still very, very nice!

Verdict: Summery and refreshing, and you'll probably never get scurvy

Raspberri Martini

8-12 fresh raspberries 
20-24 frozen raspberries

2 oz simple syrup

6 oz citrus vodka

Wet rims of four martini glasses with lemon, then dip in sugar. Place a skewer or toothpick holding 2-3 fresh raspberries in each glass and set glasses in refrigerator to chill. Muddle frozen raspberries in syrup. Pour muddled raspberry mixture into cocktail shaker and add ice and vodka; shake until chilled. Strain (use an actual strainer!) into chilled glasses. 

Absolut emailed this recipe to Kathy (hence the peculiar spelling of raspberry), so we decided to try it. My parents were staying with us, and my mom claimed this was the first cocktail she had ever tried. She's 70. I'm not sure I really believe her, but anyway she loved this, as did we all. Partly because it's so pretty to look at, and partly because it tastes heavenly. Not too tart, not too sweet, just a perfect balance of the two. And the citrus vodka (which was our own little addition to the Absolut recipe, because we didn't have any regular vodka) made it even better. We'll definitely be drinking this again. I wouldn't be surprised if my mom tries making it too...

• Nose: raspberries!
• Taste: sweet and rasberryish and lemony and very, very drinkable
• Looks: a beautiful red raspberry color with white sugar trim... Like Santa Claus on a summer's day. In a martini glass
• Goes with: cakes or cookies, maybe? We just drank it as an aperitif without food, and that was perfect. Plus you get to eat the raspberries and even the (nicely alcoholic) raspberry pulp left in the strainer!
• Rating: 8 out of 10. Maybe even 9?

Verdict: Delicious! But one of those drinks that doesn't taste as strong as it really is, so go easy.

Coconut Heart

1 oz coconut rum
Pineapple juice
1 oz Pina Colada mix
1/2 oz light rum white

Well, that's what our friendly barman Kenny (known ubiquitously as 'Cool Kenny') wrote on a scrap of paper that we brought back with us from Jamaica. Yes, we went all the way to Jamaica and all we brought back for you is this lousy cocktail recipe! But, hey, at least it wasn't a lousy cocktail.

Rum punch was a pretty lousy cocktail, in our opinion. It may be the most popular drink on the island (as well as the title of the Elmore Leonard novel that inspired Tarantino's brilliant movie Jackie Brown), but the ones we had tasted like cheap rum mixed with very cheap synthetic fruit juice (which is probably exactly what they were). Coconut Heart, on the other hand, had far more elegance and depth of flavor, while still seeming like an authentic taste of the Caribbean.

• Nose: coconut, pineapple and rum (funnily enough)
• Taste: ditto
• Looks: we don't remember for sure, but Kathy says it was yellowish-white in a 'woman-shaped glass', and I distinctly recall a Mascherano cherry (like a maraschino cherry, but with a bit more bite) and possibly an umbrella, though Kathy says the umbrella was just my imagination
• Goes with: a hotel swimming pool, a Montego Bay sunset, jerk chicken, and Ding Dong's 'Tom Cruise' played on a loop
• Rating: 7 out of 10

Verdict: Probably a bit too sweet for most occasions, but a nice souvenir of a cool trip.

Ouzo and Water

Pour an inch or two of Ouzo into a tumbler over ice, and add water to taste.

I'm not sure this even qualifies as a cocktail, strictly speaking, but it has all the qualities you want from a good cocktail: delicious taste, subtly intoxicating effect, and a hint of decadent escapism, transporting you, for the space of an afternoon hour, to another world. In this case, the world you are transported to is a warm and glorious evening on a Greek island, sitting on a bar terrace, overlooking the Adriatic, with no concerns but what you should nibble while sipping your cloudy-white, licorice-flavored drink. We ate salami, cheese, olives, and wasabi chips. A more authentic choice would probably have been some sort of pickled squid dish, but it was still pretty great. (Of course, it helped that this particular February afternoon in Texas was unseasonably warm.)

I read an article online about how all the ouzos you can buy Stateside are commercial crap that bear no relation to the real stuff for sale in Greece. This may well be true - neither of us has ever drunk real Ouzo in Greece (well, Sam may have had some in Crete when he was 21, but his memory is a little fuzzy and he's fairly sure it would have been commercial crap anyway) - but, well, in this case, ignorance is bliss, because it still tasted very nice to us.

• Nose: licorice
• Taste: licorice
• Looks: like you've dipped a paintbrush covered with white paint in a glass of water
• Goes with: big, fat Kalamata olives (and pickled squid, maybe)
• Rating: 8 out of 10

Verdict: A simple, easy ray of alcoholic sunshine. We'll definitely be drinking this again.

Tovarisch Cocktail . . . or so we thought

Here's the real recipe for a Tovarisch Cocktail:

6 oz vodka
3 oz Jaegermeister
2 oz fresh lime juice

The word "tovarisch" is Russian for ally. Which would make sense in relation to the liquors included. Is this cocktail a reference to the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1938? (If so, surely the lime isn't meant to refer to Limeys . . . ) Funny that there is also a cocktail called Allies (gin, vermouth, and Kummel or Jaegermeister); the "allies" there would be England, France, and Germany. (When did that happen?)

Anyway . . . we had a slight mishap and made a not-so-Tovarisch cocktail. Here's what we actually mixed (let's call it a Muddy Pond):

6 oz Bombay Sapphire gin
3 oz Jaegermeister
2 oz fresh lime juice

Shake with ice; makes 2 servings.

• Nose: Smells like cough medicine
• Taste: I liked the way I first tasted the lime and then got a finish of licorice
• Looks: Like crap. Specifically, really runny diarrhea. Or, perhaps slightly more innocuous, like pond water. We were not a fan of the cloudy brown color. 
• Goes with: A sunny spring day. . . by a dirty pond, maybe.
• 3 out of 10

Verdict: We don't hate it, but we definitely don't love it. We won't be making this again. But maybe sometime we should try the true Tovarisch Cocktail, with vodka instead of gin? Not today, though. Because right now my face is numb. 

French 75

4 oz Bombay Sapphire gin
2 tsp confectioner's sugar
1 oz lemon juice
10 oz Brut champagne

Shake first three ingredients with ice and pour into flutes; top off with champagne; makes 2 servings

The confectioner's sugar didn't exactly work . . . you would think it might have dissolved in the liquid, but it mostly just settled to the bottom. (The recipe we were following actually called for "superfine sugar" but confectioner's was the finest we had on hand.) We also didn't use the cool-looking lemon twist pictured here, but we did garnish with a lemon slice. We drank from champagne glasses, as pictured, despite Esquire's call for Collins glasses.

• Nose: smells like a summer's day
• Taste: lightly, pleasantly decadent
• Looks: fancy
• Goes with: a New Orleans balcony in the late afternoon sun
• Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Verdict: I think next time we'll try it with bar syrup instead of confectioner's sugar. This cocktail is definitely worth trying again, but it's also worth trying improvements. Maybe more lemon juice?

Dirty Martini

6 oz Bombay Sapphire gin
3 oz dry vermouth
1 1/2 oz olive juice
4 garlic-stuffed olives

Shake with ice; makes 2 servings; blows your mind!

This is the classic James Bond cocktail (shaken, not stirred, no matter what Maxim might say about combined spirits) with a dirty twist thanks to a dash of olive juice. (I'm kind of surprised James Bond doesn't like it dirty.) Despite the picture, we haven't tried pimiento-stuffed olives (yet)--we love garlic.

• Nose: The first time Sam smelled it, he thought, Oh my god. This is why alcoholics drink martinis.
• Taste: Ultra-briny and ultra-delicious, with a massive kick behind it.
• Looks: Super-cool. With the olives and the shape of the glass, it looks like a work of art. It is a work of art. 
• Goes with: Any location from our bar at home to a super-chic hotel bar in NYC. Drink while nibbling wasabi chips and kalamata olives.
• Rating: 10 out of 10. The perfect drink? 

Verdict: Heaven in a glass. This becomes our regular Thirsty Thursday tipple.