Food History

Note to self: when using spoon to float brandy for #6, do not even think of drinking extra brandy out of the spoon. There is enough alcohol in your day already. Already, in fact, there is more than there has been at any time these last two weeks. #6, for the record, is dull. It’s lemonade for alcoholics and a waste of good brandy. I bet it was a drink like this that spawned the term ‘giggle water.’

I’m eyeing off the other recipes. Discretion is the better part of valour. Also, my typing is going peculiar: I need an afternoon nap. I especially need one because the next drink calls for a full wineglass of brandy. No it doesn’t. That’s because I’ve suddenly changed the order of testing to save my sanity. Also so that I can try one more drink then have that sleep. (For the record, I’m not making them full size, just in case you were wondering why I still sound almost-not-drunk. Also for the record, both drinks have suddenly hit me like a steamroller. Right now I’m a very, very happy historian. A small piece of me wonders why I chose the Middle Ages when I could have been drinking early twentieth century liquor for the last twenty years. Most of me still knows that there are very, very good reasons for confining the drinks to a very few days and then getting back to the Middle Ages.)

The third drink (and the very last I can manage this session) is a shaken cocktail. I’m hoping it will turn out well, because it looks cute and has ingredients I like, individually. When I bought the Grenadine, the shop assistant told me, quite sincerely, that it tastes much nicer than red cordial. I was strong and brave and refrained from giving her a complete history of grenadine. It still puzzles me that anyone could use red cordial instead of it. My only sorrow is that real grenadine isn’t available in the ACT (that I can find) so I have an artificial version. It’s a nice red, though.

Anyhow, to drink #2 on my list: it looks like red medicine and, by golly, it tastes like red medicine. Lots of ice would dilute it, but I really doubt anything can redeem it. Actually, it improves as I drink more of it. It’s less odious, but still not something I would drink again. My main thought is that this is the medicine the Darling family was so fond of in Peter Pan. Just to be certain, I’ve mixed it more, since the recipe advises to shake well and really, all I did was stir it. Yes, the extra effort makes a difference. It tastes almost drinkable. Almost is not good enough. Not nearly good enough. Much as I like the thought of everyone sporting glasses that look nicely medicinal, no-one at the Banquet will taste this beauty.

And now I need that nap. I hope no-one rings in the next two hours, because I doubt I am as sober as I think I am.