Mixologists

I recently went to a new watering hole, all warm low-lighting and fancy bar menu designed by someone with interesting eyewear and a penchant for Copperplate. The drinks, with the clever names you’d expect from a hipster bar that requires a secret handshake to enter, were made out of exotic ingredients. My pal and I were parched so we just ordered up two Tanqueray & tonics.

No Tanqueray.

No problem. I can roll with a locally distilled and hand-crafted gin.

Minutes ticked by. The thirst mounted.

Finally, our server appeared with a pair of ginger-colored cocktails gleaming in their old-fashioned glasses. “Good news! We have this amazing tonic; it’s made from Peruvian tree bark.”

My face became the visual version of a needle scratching a record. Peruvian tree bark in my gin & tonic. That explained the tea-stained color.

Again, I’d like to think I’m open minded. But hell if it didn’t taste vaguely like cinnamon-laced apple. And it was as flat as Keira Knightley’s chest.

Needless to say, I sent that drink back to South America and gave my best stinkeye to the bartender. Excuse me, mixologist.

Hand-crafted bitters infused with rare herbs. Schnapps produced in a tiny Alpine hamlet only during avalanche season. Drink names that combine the mixologist’s last vacation destination with a weather phenomenon or natural disaster. No, I do not want a Cabo San Tsunami, Amsterdammit! What’s next? Vodka made from Brussels sprouts?

Mixologists are easy to spot. Their plumage comes in the form of a natty vest and they all vaguely resemble Joseph Gordon-Levitt. They have an extensive knowledge of Absinthe and the ruined men who loved her, are judgmental of anyone else’s cocktail-crafting abilities, and rejoice in taking half an hour to make a Ramos gin fizz (which, admittedly, is delicious).

While they follow spirits trends, they pride themselves on being an exhaustive repository on all things boozy. If you want the backstory on that 15-year-old Calvados, the mixologist is your man. But if you want a drink without a side of “I know better; let me make you a new and improved cocktail,” head to your closest dive bar. You can get pissed drunk instead of pissed off.

(photo: startribune.com)

White Zinfandel

How can I swallow such a blatant lie? I’m not nearly drunk enough to think that the misnomer that is this silly pink wine is white.

Color blindness, however, is the least of its problems. White Zinfandel is wine with training wheels, a transitional beverage in the no-man’s land—seriously, no man would drink this—between a wine spritzer and a crappy bottle of wine with off-the-chart sugar levels.

The French manicure of wines, this varietal is sipped by real housewives who insist they are “classy” while tipping tables and pulling each others’ weaves. Tickled pink I am not.

(photo: inclinespirits.com)

Well drinks

I spent nigh on three decades wondering what all the fuss was about. I grew up with blue-collar alcoholics, I saw a buttload of drinking in college, and then I entered the working world, which meant a lot of ill-advised shoulder pads, crap happy hours, and drink specials.

Which meant a lot of cheap hooch and well drinks.

I didn't get it. Whiskey sours, sea breezes, white wine spritzers, Cape Cods, gin and tonics, highballs, vodka gimlets, screwdrivers, scotch and soda… I sampled the hell out of them all and found one common thread.

They all sucked gas-station attendant ass.

They tasted of medicine and jet fuel, laced with teeth-bruising sweetness. I didn't get it. I didn't cotton to beer and while I liked the pretentiousness of wine culture and barrel-aged reds, my migraines didn't.

So I stuck to Diet Coke.

Then something miraculous happened. I ordered a Tanqueray and tonic. My taste buds screamed their approval and I never looked back at the nameless bottles behind the bar. I traded up to the literal top-shelf liquors, trying Bombay, Tanqueray 10, Hendricks, Plymouth, Death's Door, and other kinds of fancy-pants gin. I asked a bartender to create a flight of martinis with different vodkas so my girlfriends and I could do a proper taste test. I no longer need to wish at the well because my dreams came true in a delicious green bottle.

 What's the worst drink you've ever knocked back?

(photo: mchenryconightout.com)

Peach schnapps

Setting: Triangle Fraternity, somewhere in Michigan, sometime in the 80s…

Enter a brainy co-ed, wearing a peach-colored shirt from Contempo Casuals and that awesome pair of Guess jeans with the zippers at the ankles. You know what I’m talking about.

Well, the brainiac wasn’t so smart that particular night, as she was also packing a pint of peach schnapps. Even though the engineering fraternity usually had an open bar at its parties, it was sometimes inconvenient to interrupt a heated game of 8-ball or Twister to get a fresh fuzzy navel. So she brought her own, alternately taking swigs and reapplying her frosty Clinique lipstick, the one she got as a gift with purchase.

You know what happened next.

Wildly drunk, she had the walking spins, was flirting madly, bent down to pick up something and accidentally got kneed in the eye, yacked, and mercifully, finally passed out after Maria or someone got her back to South Quad.

The next day was not pretty, and not only because of her black eye.

To this day, the less-than-brainy graduate can suss out that treacly syrup in any punch (Jared’s new year’s concoction, to be precise) or cocktail. Just a soupçon of that peachish smell brings on da acid reflux, brings on da funk. During a brief stint at The Body Shop, she was immediately nauseated whenever someone dabbed the decay-scented oil on the wrist.

What's the deal with fruit-scented stuff that doesn’t actually smell or taste remotely like the real thing? Peach schnapps gives peach a bad rap. This will not do. It’s time to defend the honor of stone fruit everywhere and punch the evil that is peach schnapps in the schnoz. Better yet, I'm going to pour it into a vat near Fraternity Row, set it on fire, and let co-eds get that warm, fuzzy feeling without the threat of puking.

What booze has your body rejected?

(photo: andygreenwell.com/big%20pix-all/peach_schnapps.jpg)