A Sexy Way to Cry

Tiki drinks are drinks people have in movies that suck. This is the definition in wikipedia. Perhaps in subconscious rebellion against this, or perhaps because Mr. Dragon is becoming a tiny adult, I became a towering child and took a literary approach to this challenge. In his novel Pnin, Vladimir Nabokov explores the trivialization of Russian culture, and the fundamentally populist (proletarian?) nature of bourgeois condescension. He also, as it turns out, lays out one hell of a cocktail recipe. At the anticlimactic party near the end of this book, the title character puts together a punch that the pitying guests really rather enjoy. Here is the passage:

"Drinks were to be represented by whiskey (Betty's contribution), ryabinovka (a rowanberry liqueur), brandy-and-grenadine cocktails, and of course Pnin's punch, a heady mixture of chilled Chateau Yquem, grapefruit juice, and maraschino, which the solemn host had already started to stir in a a large bowl of brilliant aquamarine glass with a decorative design of swirled ribbing and lily pads."

Chateau Yquem is a Sauternes, but more, all at once. It is THE Sauternes. I may like these people, but I figured I didn't need to spend $300 to make no point. So using a lesser Sauternes, I made the following:

Pnin's Punch

2 oz. Sauternes (I used 2001 Chateau Rolland)

.5 to .75 oz fresh grapefruit juice

.5 teaspoons maraschino

serve with a couple ice cubes.

This drink is wonderful. In this case it tasted distinctly of passionfruit, but passionfruit dissolved, rebuilt, and made perfect. May this drink recipe live on, fly on, in its reflected sky. It is a classic to me.

My second drink was decent, I thought, when I made it right. Unfortunately, I got a couple ratios wrong at the crucial moment and it ended up too sweet. The proper recipe is shown below. By reason of this mistake, and for the completely twisted literary vision of tiki-ness that it can conjure (think abused mentally retarded girl becomes pagan god and tears the heads off a thousand geese), I call this drink

Shame

2 oz. smooth, volatile rum (Barbancourt 5 star)

1/2 oz. Amaro Melletti

squeeze lemon

squeeze lime

This drink is about rum. It tastes like rum, deepened and stretched. If you accidentally double the amaro, then it tastes like amaro, so don't do that. You want it to taste like rum. Trust me.

Above is an artist's impression of Harry Potter looking at Pnin's Punch and wondering why Butter Beer (tm) sucks so bad.