It’s spring, it’s March, the cat didn’t barf today, daffodils! So many small reasons to celebrate! And for me, I am no longer wearing a giant sling 23 hours a day, which means Phase 1 of shoulder surgery recovery is behind me. I took the dogs for their hike this morning. I cannot run for another 6 weeks, but I said hello to all the regulars running by and noticed where the trail has changed slightly with rain and snow …
Category: Cocktails & Coffee
There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of fantastic companies making bitters right now. And since I am known as a person who likes to make fancy cocktails, I have been gifted dozens of bottles of all kinds of bitters, in addition to flavors that I bought on my own. So why would I ever need (or want) to make bitters? Making bitters at home requires purchasing obscure ingredients from boutique herb shops in Seattle, special bottles for dispensing, they take weeks …
Learning to be comfortable in different weather conditions is one of the benefits of spending a lot of time outside. Weather isn’t always ideal: hail, while one of my favorite things to watch and listen to, can be quite painful when you are out on a trail run. Wind can be exhausting and frustrating. Lightning can be terrifying if you are in the wrong place, like a ridge. But there aren’t many conditions that keep me from venturing out at …
Last night the backyard hummed when I took the dogs out, and bees were everywhere. We have two neighbors with hives, so I assumed that something was happening hive-wise, and the bees did eventually calm down and fly away. We have a jar of our friend’s honey, and with a yard full of flowers I am sure that this honey is the taste of our yard and neighborhood. In honor of the neighbor bees, how about a couple of honey …
It is the nature of exploration that not every adventure will be the best adventure. Last weekend we drove out to the West Fork of the Duchesne River. We’d heard rumors that this was a worthy river and fishing great, and just our style. It’s a longish drive on pavement and the dirt road is rough, but we figured it was day-trippable from the city. For the first few miles we drove on a forest service road that goes through …
Y’all! Strawberries are back in the house. I’m not a fan of the super fruity, sweet cocktail and this is not that. There is enough berry to have flavor, but the lime and ginger keep it edgy. I was telling my co-worker about this drink and when I told her the list of ingredients she shook her head and said, “too complicated for after work.” Perhaps… I get it. Depending on how your day went, you may not want to …
Many years ago, when I was I an art teacher, I had the very best student who quickly became a friend. She was super motivated to make art, was a buddhist, and lived in a beautiful house in the East Bay hills surrounded by an incredible garden. I remember leaving her house loaded down with bags of lemons and persimmons. Kiwis were picked and then lived in a dark room off the garage for a mysterious ripening period. I wasn’t gifted many kiwis, but they always seemed very special. …
As you may know, out here in the West we have had quite an exceptional winter. Someone told me Tahoe has had 53 feet of snow! I was in Santa Cruz, California last week and saw trees down, rivers where there used to be trails, and crumbling mountainsides. Here in Utah the story is lots of snow, almost everywhere, all the time. Winter is lovely and all that, but I can’t wait for the return of song birds, flowers, sunshine, …
You know those scenes of beat down, bedraggled soldiers in black and white war movies? Imagine a couple of enemy soldiers inevitably overcoming their differences and bonding over a bottle of vodka. How did such a rough-and-tumble booze become the drink of sorority girls? The list of hangover inducing vodka cocktails is long: Appletini, Cosmopolitan, Lemon Drop…. But I think the main culprit here is sugar, rather than vodka. Vodka is perhaps a willing collaborator, but not necessarily the instigator. …
For those of us that prefer dirt to snow, sunshine to darkness, flip flops to boots, winter can be a little trying. It is tempting to settle in with a stack of books and a bottle of whiskey and wait it out. However, there is much to appreciate about winter, and it is inevitable for many of us, so we may as well have some great cocktails to help us enjoy the moment. A cold, refreshing G&T isn’t quite the right beverage to celebrate …
Gin! It’s made from juniper berries! No other plant is more iconic to the West than the juniper bush (except possibly the tumbleweed). From the deserts to the mountains its twisted, bushy and spiky green shape provides a bit of shade for your dogs and a promise of a tasty cocktail when you return to home base. It pairs incredibly well with citrus (to keep away scurvy) and is a very good friend to have in your cabinet. As with our whiskey cocktail …
There are so many ways to love whiskey. For the most part, we do not discriminate about where the whiskey comes from (though we are wary of the Indiana whiskey, primarily on principle), or what type it is. Open our liquor cabinet today and you will see at least two bottles of Scotch whisky, four bottles of bourbon and one bottle of wheat whiskey… we have also been known to drink Japanese single malt, Irish whiskey and rye. We do …
Our friend just retired. His wife is still working, so she thought he might want to work on his cocktail skills to ensure that he has something tasty to hand her when she comes home from a hard day at the office (and he had an adventurous day in the mountains). This inspired us to write up some cocktail guidelines, for those that are uncertain where to start, but appreciate that cocktail hour is the second best hour of the day. Cocktails …