Alert-120

There’s been a lot of things I have gotten into up here that I wouldn’t have otherwise and one of those things is alcohol (in the least problematic way I can). A few weeks ago, our current Tradie – the person who runs the Trading Post and bars, hosted a Mixology class and I promised that her recipes would make it onto the blog. This ones for you Betty-Jo 😊

These Mixology classes are a clever cover up for making drinks with liquor no one wants to drink in order to get rid of them faster, like the bottles of Pernod, Drambuie and Bombay gin that sit for weeks at the back of the shelf. More for decoration than anything else, especially when there’s Empress gin up for grabs.

We’ll start in order from MOST to LEAST liked by yours truly:

Antifreeze

1oz Vodka
.25oz Amaretto
.25oz Melon McGuinness Liqueur
4-5oz Sprite
*You can add orange peel or an orange wedge as a garnish

^It usually is more green depending on the amount of melon and sprite, but it does look just like antifreeze when you pour it from the shaker.

AntiFreeze is a controversial order up here in Alert because us bartenders are incredibly lazy and don’t feel like breaking out the cocktail shaker to mix it properly. We tried the AntiFreeze cocktail mixed in a shaker, and then poured into a glass with no mixing. To no one’s surprise, the shaken version (the proper way) tasted wayyy better, especially when you add the ice from said shaker as your ice in the glass (marinated ice). AntiFreeze tastes like a boozy melon Melona ice-cream bar which I am sure will disgust Colleen but they were always my favourite flavour.

Keylime Skies (My own name for the nameless Drambuie Cocktail)

1.5oz Drambuie
¼ Fresh lime
6-8oz lemon/lime soda (we used Sprite)
Garnish with maraschino cherries

Drambuie is a Scotch whisky liqueur with heather honey (heather being a flowering shrub native to Europe), herbs and spices which sort of tastes similar to licorice. I usually end up ordering this instead of AntiFreeze because of the dirty looks I get whenever I try to order anything with more than one shot of something.

*Liquor versus Liqueur? The only difference between an alcohol being a liquor or a liqueur is the ratio of sugar to alcohol content. Liquors typically have a much higher alcohol percentage, and liqueurs are liquors with way more sugar added to act as accents/flavouring in mixed drinks.

Royal Hard Rootbeer

1.5oz Crown Royal Vanilla
4oz Rootbeer

My favourite Crazy Uncle Hard Rootbeer cooler is made with vodka, whereas this is made with Crown whisky. I really have no comment, if the hard rootbeer didn’t already exist, this may have been my top, however, hard rootbeer does exist and this is just more steps than opening a can.

You can make a Crown Orange Crush by mixing regular Crown Royal with orange crush which I have yet to try, but had positive reviews from one of the other guys at the mixology class.

Ten Strike *the drink…no one liked
1oz Pernod
.5oz Bombay gin
2 dashes of orange bitters

If you’re a wuss like me, I had to have orange juice added to mine to make some kind of fucked up Screwdriver or Tiger Stripe ice-cream. Pernod is like liquid black licorice that is radioactive yellow-green in colour. Who thought, “Oh yeah, let’s add GIN to that, it would be perfect!” to make a snot-coloured shot of pure body-shaking disgust. Betty-Jo, that drink was PERSONAL. And, no, the orange juice did not help.

SOME OTHER DRINKS WE DID NOT MAKE BUT I WROTE DOWN ANYWAY

Apple Pie Shot
50/50 Crown Vanilla and Crown Apple

Cement Mixer
A shot of Baileys with lime juice *the lime somewhat coagulates the Baileys, and when you mix it in your mouth, it turns curdled hence the name ‘Cement Mixer’

Vampire Cloak
Tequila, Blue Curacao, Cranberry Juice *it turns a smoky black that looks spooky, it was apart of the Halloween Mixology class

Fright Night Groove
Jaeger, Tequila, Grapefruit juice, Simple Syrup

Rocky Mountain Bear Fucker
Jack Daniels, Southern Comfort Tequila (specifically)

Thank you for hosting the Mixology night even though there were only 3 of us and 2 of those 3 were bartenders, I learned a lot and you have planted a mixology bug in me 😉

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More recently, I went cross country skiing for the first time!

Me, Hazmat (my friend Brendan who is in charge of burning all the garbage on station) and Hydro Dan skied along the edge of Upper Dumbbell Lake to the ice fishing hut which hadn’t actually been put on the ice for some reason and we had a little fire. It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies stretching across the mountainous horizon, but I was too busy looking at my own feet or else I would tip over. Unfortunately, the only sizes of ski shoe ranged from men’s 9.5 to 12.5, and the shortest skis were 190s. I am a 155cm women’s size 6.

I was roped into the ski trip after I had just played ball hockey for an hour. I had to pull my parka off at one point and just sit, steam was actually coming off my skin from the cold air. I ended up keeling over while I waited for the fire to start. For never cross-country skiing before, and wearing shoes/skis 4 times too big, it was a well-deserved rest.

As my departure date creeps nearer, I can’t help but feel really sad over leaving. A good chunk of my friends will be leaving in the next few weeks before me so I am sure it will continue to feel like impending doom of having to rejoin civilized society, as well as the building anxiety of trying to get stuff done that I still want to do. My next project is getting out to the wood shop to start making my student plaque and crib board.