Our Extreme Weather-Themed Drink Night (with embarrassing video!)

You know when people say, ‘be careful what you wish for, you just might get it?’

Well, surely you will remember last week when I was talking about how much I love earthquakes and kind of sort of miss them. And then guess what? In Pittsburgh, the place-least-likely-to-quake, we had an earthquake.

And then, as if that wasn’t exciting enough, there was a hurricane moving up the coast!! Perhaps in an attempt to keep up with the visiting earthquake, Irene was scheduled to hit the places where hurricanes never dare to tread: New York and New England.

So, since we all know how much I freaking LOVE extreme weather, we thought what better day to do our next theme drink night? The theme: Extreme Weather Beverages.

Drink #1: Dark and Stormy:
2 ounces dark rum
3 ounces ginger beer
1/2 ounce lime juice

This is one of those ‘writer’ drinks that you always hear about, but never know how to make. I’ve always had this idea that writers drink these while penning the Next Great Novel, so I was kind of eager to try it. But my Hornsby dentist recommended to obstain from strong drinks for a while.

Eager became ‘hesitant’ once I saw the ingredients. I am so *not* a rum girl. The answer to the question ‘why is the rum gone’ NEVER has anything to do with me.

And my suspicions were verified upon taking the first sip. Dark and stormy drinks are not for me!

Since Michael is a real writer, I thought maybe he would fare better with the drink.

But no, the rum was just too strong for him as well. We would never make it as Pirates. Pittsburgh Pirates, maybe, but that’s not saying much.

While we were enjoying these craptastic beverages, we decided to partake in another Achievement: watch 2 of Michael’s favorite movies. The first movie on the list was Monster Squad, which is basically an 80s horror movie for kids. You can see how excited Michael was to share this with me.

Here is how excited I was. I feel a little better, because Lucy was clearly less excited.

Drink #2: Purple Rain
1 1/4 oz. Curacao, blue
1 1/4 oz. Vodka
1/4 oz. Lime Juice
2 oz. Pineapple Juice
2 oz. Grenadine

Guess what I forgot to buy? Pineapple juice. Now, I don’t like pineapples, and I don’t know how the pineapple flavor would add to this drink, but I have to assume it would somehow make it better, because it was just awful.

The reason this is called a Purple Rain (besides the chance to be named after that very fabulous Prince movie) is because you add everything but the grenadine together first, as shown above…

Then add the grenadine to make it look like it is raining purple in your glass.

It truly did turn purple once you mixed in the grenadine. Unfortunately, although it looked like Dimetapp, it did not taste nearly as good. It tasted more like NyQuil and ice wine. Ugh.

Sipping that thing with a spoon was the only way I would get through it.

Drink #3: Hurricane
1 oz vodka
1/4 oz grenadine syrup
1 oz gin
1 oz light rum
1/2 oz Bacardi® 151 rum
1 oz amaretto almond liqueur
1 oz triple sec
grapefruit juice
pineapple juice

We decided to keep it classic for drink #3 and make hurricanes, in these super ugly cute plastic hurricane cups that I found for $1.50. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the pineapple juice, and I *thought* we had Fresca to substitute for grapefruit juice… but Michael drank it all. So yet again, this did not taste as it was intended to…

But I have to believe this could not have been intended to taste good. Ugh.

As you may have noticed, we tried to do all of our measuring of shots in shot glasses for areas that were supposed to get hit with the hurricane. It was our version of a reverse rain dance: the more drinks we made, the less devastating Irene would be.

By this point, Michael had finished almost all of each of his drinks (while I got away with a few sips before abandoning them entirely teeheehee), so he was a little less than ecstatic to pour the final drink of the evening.

Drink #4: Goodnight Irene
1 1/2 ounces Maker’s Mark
1 1/2 ounces Branca Menta

This drink smelled like mouthwash mixed with Jager. And not just Jager that you got at the end of your bachelorette party when you were really in the mood for Jager. We’re talking Jager that had been sitting out for days under a hot sun and near a steaming pile of dog poo. That kind of Jager. And mouthwash.

It would not do the drink justice to merely post a photo of Michael’s reaction to this unearthly potion, so I decided to take this little video of the experience:

See, wasn’t that worth all of our hard work?

Oh, and Monster Squad? It’s really cute! Good kid actors, good doggy actor, and a surprising twist from one of the monsters who turns out to be quite the charmer (I won’t say who!). Clearly I was the one who got the better end out of this deal: Michael had to drink that nasty Goodnight Irene, and I just had to watch a funny movie from the 80s!

And I think our reverse-rain-dance helped a tiny bit. All of our friends and family in the path of Irene made it through just fine, and that is worth drinking bad booze concotions any day of the week!