Mmmmm

Anne's margarita recipe might just be the best one I've tasted. It's classy. It's a margarita that belongs in a sophisticated bar, not some almost-gooey mess in a pitcher that you swill with Mexican food that's just a notch above Taco Bell. Case closed.

Moving on to the martini — I've never been a gin fan, so usually I opt for a vodka martini, which some people say is not even actually a martini. In the spirit of experimentation, though, I mixed up one of each, and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the gin. (I used Tanqueray - would that make a difference?)

So I'm sticking with that for now. Tanqueray, vermouth, an olive, and a splash of olive juice — because martinis, like life, are best when a little dirty.

Margarita
Manly or girly? Girly enough that a guy needs to be with a gal, and they order them together.
Appearance: Light green
Consistency: A little syrupy
Taste: Lemon lime tequila yes!
Good drink for: Afternoons on the patio
Stomach acceptance: Bueno
Hangover factor: High
Would I actually order this in public? Under the proper circumstances

Martini
Manly or girly? Studly
Appearance: Clear, or slightly muddied by olive juice
Consistency: Liquid
Taste: Straight vodka or gin, with the edge slightly taken off
Good drink for: Bribing Mayor Oscar Goodman
Stomach acceptance: Ja
Hangover factor: Hangover? A few of these and I'm still drunk the next morning
Would I actually order this in public? Absolutely

Confirmation: It sucks

I was in Fiji once. Being on a South Pacific island, I figured a Mai Tai would be appropriate. Bad idea. I finished the sugar drink, sure — I didn't want to be rude — but immediately switched back the home-grown Fijian beer, which is quite tasty.

The second time around wasn't much better. Rum, more rum, Triple Sec, pineapple juice, sour mix, and a little more of my walnut flavoring (it's supposed to be creme de almond, but I refuse to buy anything with "creme" in the name). Yup, supersweet. Blech. And I didn't even put a cherry in it.


Manly or Girly? All-the-way female
Appearance: Mine was kind of a rusty brown; not sure if that's the right color
Consistency: A little on the syrupy side
Taste: Blech.
Stomach acceptance: Fine, but I can accept almost anything.
Good drink for: Pretending you're having a cocktail.
Hangover factor: Medium.
Would I actually order this in public? Never, ever again.

Homemade Hurricane

To tell the truth, I was dreading this drink. I've had a few Hurricanes at Pat O'Brien's and found them to be overly sweet, sticky red ripoffs. Their only saving grace is that they're the least girly drink on a menu so girly you should have to put on a dress to order. (Except for the Bloody Mary, of course.)

But there's more than one way to make a Hurricane.

Here's the recipe I used: 1 ounce each of vodka, gin, light rum, Amaretto and Triple Sec, plus half an ounce of Bacardi 151. (Seems like overkill, but what do you want? It's in the recipe.) Add grapefruit juice and pineapple juice, then top with Grenadine.

I substituted orange juice for pineapple juice, and it worked just fine.

This mixed into a fresh, sweet cocktail with almost no alcohol taste at all. Take that, you French Quarter tourist trap!

Here's an Emeril Lagasse recipe I found for making Hurricanes for a group:

12 ounces light rum
12 ounces dark rum
10 ounces Grenadine
10 ounces orange juice
10 ounces sour mix or lime juice
3 tbsp fine sugar
One orange

Stir all the ingredients except the orange, then cut up the orange and drop it in.

Manly or Girly? Still girly
Appearance: shades of red, pink and yellow
Consistency: regular cocktail
Taste: Sweet, slightly fruity
Stomach acceptance: Fine
Good drink for: Watching the krewes roll by
Hangover factor: High. Also high — chance of bright red projectile vomit.
Would I actually order this in public? No, but I would make one at a party.

Immaculate mixception

The miraculous thing about a Long Island Iced Tea is that when you make it right, it tastes nonalcoholic, despite having five different kinds of liquor in it.

My first attempt failed.

Once I ironed out the glitches? Perfection.

It doesn't actually taste like tea. It's more like a soft drink, especially once the ice melts a little and you start forgetting that you're consuming something that's about 30 percent booze. These were a staple for us in college, thanks to Bruno's, the Uptown mainstay that serves (and continues to serve) ridiculously cheap teas one night a week.

Back in the day, at least, they mixed up large vats so they could pour them quickly. For us special regulars, though, the bartender would make it by hand — one ounce each of vodka, rum, gin, tequila and Triple Sec, then fill the rest with sour mix, topped by a splash of Coke and a lemon slice. Yeah, life was good when the weekend started on Wednesday ...


Manly or Girly? Kinda girly, but a guy can get away with it.
Appearance: Brown, like tea
Consistency: Syrupy
Taste: Sweet and a little sour, nonalcoholic
Stomach acceptance: Fine. Just don't overdo it.
Good drink for: Keeping cool on muggy nights
Hangover factor: High
Would I actually order this in public? For me, these days it's a special occasion drink, such as when I visit New Orleans.

Jet Fuel

The Margaritas were so good that I had to share, the Martinis were for me alone.

My rule with a Martini, it must to cold. No, it must be beyond cold. It must be arctic. I keep martini glasses in the freezer just so the little darlins don't warm up on me.

A good Martini is one that reminds me of jet fuel as I drink it. I hate the idea of Martinis growing warm on me so much that I tend to drink them quickly ... this often leads to trouble ...

Here's What You Need to Make a Martini:

• ice
• shaker
• 2 oz gin
• 1/2 to 1 oz dry vermouth
• olive garnish

Here's How Anne Made the Martini:
Shake briskly, for the small bubbles that cloud the Martini when it is poured are pleasing to me.

Manly or Girly? Manly. Very, very manly
Appearance: Clear
Consistency: Icy
Taste: Jet fuelesque
Stomach acceptance: Good, but the limit is two
Good drink for: Any point of sophistication
Hangover factor: I've never noticed one
Would I actually order this in public? Yes, with Bombay Sapphire, please

Tomorrow's Assignment: Mimosa

Homework:

• Champers
• orange juice
• nice glass
  

Margaritas

I've been around them long before they were popular. My mother was a fan of the Margarita. She would often scoff at other people's Margaritas, "Hmm, tastes like zomeone zimply vaved zee teKEEla bottle in front ov zee blendar," while serving up concoctions that would ooze tequila out of your pores a day after consumption. There has to be a happy medium, and I think this recipe is it. I found it good enough to serve to others.

Certainly, you can taste the tequila, but it's a nice taste (so long as you have good tequila). The alcohol cuts the sweet and sour so that the mixture does not in any way resemble a thickened lemonade as so many Margaritas have become.

Prostole!

Here's What You Need to Make a Margarita:

• 1 oz tequila
• 1/2 oz Triple Sec
• 3 oz sweet and sour
• 1/2 lime
• ice
• shaker
• glass with salt on the rim

Here's How Anne Made the Margarita:
Mix in the shaker, pour in the glass. I skipped the salted rim. I mean, I get it, and it's not bad, but I'd be wasting a lot of salt, really.

Manly or Girly? Girly. Girly name. Consumed by the pitcher by girly types. Guys can drink them, too, but never when on the prowl to meet new women
Appearance: Pale yellow
Consistency: Liquid
Taste: Slightly sour, tequila, sweet, tequila, sour
Stomach acceptance: Slight acidity, but mostly good.
Good drink for: Gaggles of women folk giggling about menfolk before the taco and enchilada platters arrive. Ever notice anyone order a margarita at a bar not attached to a restaurant? I didn't think so
Hangover factor: Si
Would I actually order this in public? With dinner, sure

Next Assignment: Martini

Homework:

• ice
• shaker
• 2 oz gin
• 1/2 to 1 oz dry vermouth
• olive garnish
  

Weights and measures

You see, I'm not one of those "precision" people in the kitchen. If I need to boil something in water, I don't care how much water the instructions tell me to boil — I just fill the pot until it looks like there's enough. I add spices in the "about that much" measurement; even if I cook a frozen pizza, the cook time on the package doesn't match the actual time that I cook the thing.

So I didn't pay much attention to the ounces contained in my shot glasses when mixing drinks. Even if I wasn't pouring precisely 1.5 ounces of bourbon into my highball, for instance, I could still keep the ratios intact.

And then I came to the Long Island Iced Tea and the Hurricane.

Even with the mixers, the concoctions I came up with could've sterilized surgical equipment. So I took it upon myself to determine my shot glasses' volumes, which turned out to be 2 ounces. Which means in both of the drinks mentioned above, I was pouring 10 ounces of alcohol into a 16-ounce drink.

That's not drinking. That's "Leaving Las Vegas" territory. However, I can now say that my steak knives are sterile.