Soda

As the summer comes to a close, and you would rather just drink things out of a bottle and not spend forever concocting something or whatever, we are grateful to have access to a myriad of fizzy beverages that are made with actual taste in mind and not by some giant faceless company who shoves high fructose corn syrup into everything. 

Now we know that every region has their own local soda that everyone likes, and if we leave yours out then... too bad, we can't go get everything.
























Pig Iron Cola

Fentiman's

If you like a really strong sharp cola taste, the Pig Iron is a really good example of that.  Unfortunately, Pinky Mixology HQ is a bit far from Seattle, so our local suppliers don't always have it on hand.  The Fentiman's has the unfortunate distinction of being liked by the New York Times and being rated #1 in their list of colas, but despite being liked by the newspaper equivalent of a retired food co-op manager, this stuff is a very nice change of pace and goes well with stuff like fish or salad.




















Moving on to Birch Beer











Brownie Caramel Cream


Manhattan Special Sarsaparilla


Boylan's; a soda company that's still close to our hearts, but the Birch Beer just seem to miss the mark for us.  Maybe it's because we used to spend so much time in Wayne County PA.




Now maybe you might be wondering, where is the Dublin Dr. Pepper?  Well, it's dead.  It was murdered by friggin Snapple, which is owned by Schweppes, which is owned by Cadbury.  So now you can never taste Dr. Pepper as it was originally invented and stayed that way for almost 100 years.  Snapple, Schweppes, and Cadbury have decided that you can't have that because they are all a bunch of total assholes.   So as sad as it makes us, we won't be buying anything from these fucktarded companies again... even the amazing cream eggs.  So sad.









Unless it is kept extremely cold and still before opening, Manhattan Special does have a habit of kerploding out of the bottle instantly upon opening.  There are 2 methods of dealing with this that don't involve getting soda all over you.


Small Bottle: Open it as fast as you can and shove it in your face before it has a chance to overflow (this takes some practice, but eventually you'll be able to pull off this move while walking down Brooklyn streets with the soda in one hand and a slice in the other).


Large Bottle:  You may have seen the large bottle of Manhattan Special featured in our Ice Cream Float Valentine's Day Specialaganzatacular.  Due to the nature of the cap, there is no way you are getting it off fast enough, so we usually just let a little pressure out at a time while keeping the bottle on ice in the sink in case of overflow.

Manhattan Special is always worth hunting down, but you may want to avoid their coffee variations if you have a heart condition or other caffeine sensitivity.   Their Orange and Vanilla flavors are naturally caffeine free. 









Manhattan Special


Moxie


Fentiman's weirdness.


















Cheerwine

Nesbitt's

NuGrape






Now, we're a little late on this one, and that's because we were trapped way in the wilds of upstate New York in such a forested area that there was no internetseses (we were lucky there was indoor plumbing).  So a week of living the Amish life basically has set us back a bit.  On the plus side, there was moonshine.








See you next time, when we bring you:

SRIRACHA LEMONADE (With bonus cocktail).

We really did want to make this a bonus episode for this month, but that week away really killed us.  Also we're short on booze money right now (FYI that means send us some... Money or Booze it really doesn't matter).  You you all will have to wait until Oct. 1 to see how to make the ultimate Sriracha Lemonade.  Also we made a martini version:

The Sriracha Martini awaits.
That's the bonus cocktail I was talking about
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Negroni

Then Negroni is one of those drinks that enjoyed some popularity back in the Mad Men days and is now becoming popular again thanks to "boutique" Gin labels which are doing a good job tricking hipsters to shell out too much money for Vodka that they dumped an herb garden into and let sit for a week (seriously you can make your own Gin at home, it's not hard).

But if you're going to live life as a secret agent or want to drink something dark colored that isn't whiskey based (or something retarded like vodka and diet coke), then this is worth it.

A standard Negroni contains Gin, Campari, and sweet Vermouth.  You will not be getting the standard Negroni how-to here.  Instead you will be getting our take on it, which is decidedly more bitter and angry than a normal Negroni.  We will still be using Gin, but as for the rest:

Campari --> Fernet Branca.
Vermouth --> Punt e Mes. (sorry Dolin, you're too hipster).





We recommend keeping all these ingredients chilled.  The Gin can live in the freezer, but keep the Fernet Branca and Punt e Mes in the refrigerator.  Punt e Mes will actually freeze solid, and Fernet Branca doesn't like being that cold because it mutes the flavor too much.







We are not saying top-shelf gin isn't worth it, but we're saying that combined with the heavy hitting aromas and flavors that the other ingredients are going to bring to this, you are going to lose the subtleties that make a good gin good.  We certainly do own a bottle of Brooklyn Gin, which is really good, but putting it in this would be a waste and we prefer to enjoy it neat.  Top level Gin (even the London stuff) can have some fragile botanical qualities that you would obliterate in this recipe.  Since good Gin costs, why would you use it in something in which you'd never get the full gin-ness of it?  











The ratio we use here is a straight up 2.5 ounces of Gin (2 shots) and 1.25 ounces of the other two ingredients (that's a shot of each). 




You can even add a dash of orange bitters if you want to shake things up even more. We garnished with a lemon peel, but the orange peel is traditional.  If you really want to get crazy, you can garnish with a stick of licorice root.  

These are smooth, they go down easy and before you know it you've killed a fifth of Gin before you friends show up.  As you know our little slideshows usually include a cautionary tale involving the loss of pants and such.  However, as you can see, we are outdoors for this one, and the loyal staff of Pinky Mixology had already lost about a pint of blood due to some very aggressive mosquito activity. Knowing that these little biting bitches would probably die form ingesting our blood which had alcohol levels high enough to need a catalytic converter was very little comfort, and we ducked for cover.

Next time:

SODAS

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Moonshine Mojito

Our interwebs are back and we now bring you a look into Kings County Distillery here in Brooklyn and give you an idea what to do with the moonshine they (and a gazillion other places) make and such.




Moonshine, friend of mine.  Corn-water is some interesting stuff and is now being sold legally in just about any place where you can get booze. 






Taking out the rum in a mojito kind of stops it from being a mojito, but since the mint julep already exists, the transparent quality of the end product puts this in "mojito" land.



It's illegal to make your own moonshine at home if you're in the USA.  We at Pinky Mixology honestly don't give a fuck about this, but most of the time it's easier for us to just go buy it.  Also, distilling your alcohol can be dangerous, risking everything from fires to accidentally poisoning yourself with acetone.







Although their Chocolate Whiskey is rather nice, the retardulatastic high prices Kings County Distillery charges make using this stuff basically not worth it.  Buffalo Trace makes an un-aged corn whiskey ...which is horrible for this because it's got rye in it, and Tuthilltown's Hudson Valley has one that's really nice, but again for many people the price puts it out of reach, and they have just as much chance of being able to match what Eliot Spitzer had to fork out for access to Ashley Dupré's vajayjay.























3 shots of moonshine sounds like a lot, but we're filling up a 500+ml mason jar with this thing, not some little highball glass.



The color is actually coming from the chlorophyll in the leaves but that's a good barometer to go by.




No reason to have the mint bits in there anymore. 







Do NOT shake it after you add the seltzer/soda (for obvious reasons).  Shaking not only mixes this up but also cools it down very rapidly.






































Get out there and enjoy summer.

Next Up: THE NEGRONI