Don’t Blink
I’ve always like grapefruit, as long as the ingestion of said fruit included adding lots of sugar. As a kid, it was a frequent weekend breakfast food, always served halved, covered in sugar, eaten with a spoon.
Bryan, on the other hand, hates grapefruit. He made this clear when I brought home a six pack of grapefruit juice in the off-chance it was called for in a recipe. “I hate grapefruit,” he said, in no uncertain terms. Totally uninterested in how great it tasted halved, with sugar, much less in a cocktail. When I read him Paul Clarke’s discussion of grapefruit, few sentences in his was exclaiming in agreement. “Yeah, that’s it, it’s nasty!”
So I admit great delight in handing him a drink tonight, with a subtle, “Here, taste this.” He smelled deeply (trying to guess the ingredients) and noticed the bourbon, but couldn’t place anything else. He took a sip. “This is kind of fun.”
“I made you drink grapefruit juice!”
“Well, if it’s mixed right…”
Tonight’s recipe came from A.J. Rathbun’s Good Spirits, which is written in an entertaining manner, but may err a little too much on the “if it’s in a cocktail glass it’s a martini,” “shaken, not stirred” side of cocktails for my taste. He calls for bourbon in a Blinker…further research shows that rye whisky is more traditional. So as soon as I buy a new bottle, I’ll try it again. Until then, tonight’s recipe was:
Blinker
1 1/2 oz bourbon (ezra brooks)
3/4 oz grapefruit juice
3/4 oz grenadine (jaquin’s syrop de grenadine liqueur)
shake over ice, strain into cocktail glass.
This recipe left the bourbon strong enough to announce its presence without being overwhelmed by the grenadine, which I had expected.
Related posts:
erik_flannestad said:
Mar 14, 08 at 9:20 amKenny Chesney or Dr. Who fan?
anavolena said:
Mar 14, 08 at 11:01 ami’m thinking of finally giving dr. who a go after enjoying torchwood so much; don’t know i’ve actually heard a chesney song.
erik_flannestad said:
Mar 14, 08 at 11:09 amI ask because, “Don’t Blink” was the name of an episode last season. Definitely one of the best episodes of the three new Dr. Who series. Different feel from Torchwood, though.
Blinker Cocktail Redux | Two At The Most said:
Oct 19, 08 at 9:23 pm[...] time I wrote about the Blinker, I used a recipe that called for 2 parts bourbon, 1 part grapefruit juice, and 1 part grenadine. [...]