Adventures In Vintage Cocktail Land Pt. 1

Today was just another day. Until I realized that it was Friday. And then things got good.

Dishes? Done. Laundry? Knocked out. Thirst? Banging on the roof of my mouth like a downstairs neighbor that fusses over every little sound from above. So I did what any respecting vintage-loving housewife would do.

I got out my Calvert Party Encyclopedia from 1965, put on the swanky tunes of the time, and got to work shaking and stirring. NBD.

First up, we have the "Around The World" cocktail.

Not sure what makes this worldly, but I was hoping to find out.

I measured everything to exacting amounts, and loved right away the neon-ness of the color! (No, that's not a word, but yes, I used it anyways. It's my blog and I can use made up words if I want to.) The photo isn't doing justice to the vividness of this green. If I could choose a word, it would be "toxic" green or "radioactive" green. Apropos to the era, wouldn't you agree? Just say yes, and we'll move on.

Cheers, my friends!

Sipping, tasting, pondering...

It's a moderate winner!

The green creme de menthe makes it a bit syrup-y, but that's not entirely a bad thing. The pineapple is really interesting with mint, not something I would think of or expect to be put together. I think I would have loved these in my early 20's (jeezus I feel old just saying that), but nowadays I would definitely top it off/thin it out with some club soda. Also, there is nothing "worldly" about this. More like "otherworldly"-- the neon-ness (there's that word again!) makes me feel like I'm drinking some kind of alien libation you'd see on Star Trek the original series. All in all, not a bad drink to make when you want a color show and a flavor play.

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Next I have another gin-based drink called "Attention", from the same book.

I'm sensing a theme here. Though I didn't know what that was until I started stirring the drink. As would be expected when recreating vintage recipes, there were substitutions that had to be made. Ansone or Abisante are clearly in the anisette/absinthe vein, and Pernod did just fine. Creme de Noya is likely just a different spelling of "Noyaux". Check and check.

As you can see, this drink is red.

Like, REALLY red. And this, my friends, is the theme.

The accidental theme. Toxic/Radioactive/Atomic, if you will.
(I also think it is fitting that it looks like I am raising a glass to Heisenberg.)

Not sure what to make of it.

Taking the plunge...

Yeeeeesh!

This is really, just....attention-getting for sure. I thought the "Around The World" was thick and syrup-y, but this one was just. too. much. It wasn't even the gratuitous amounts of Pernod or Vermouth, because I drink Absinthe using the traditional preparation and I really do love me a wet Martini. Luckily there was enough room to top it off (and I mean all the way off) with club soda. And even that was just a desperate fix. I would prefer to abandon this recipe entirely, but if I were to "fix" it, I would scale back the Creme de Noyaux to 1/4 and Pernod to at least 1/2, and scale up the gin to at least double. Because that's how I roll.

More tunes to shake your drinks to (and anything else you've got): LittleMissLounge

CHEERS!