a glass

I've been trying, for a while, to come up with a variation on the "last word," which is my favorite cocktail. Attempts have included such disparate - and ultimately discarded - ingredients as rum, brandy, bourbon (this showed promise), and even Malibu's sultry coconut delight. Tonight, however, I feel as though I've finally hit on the winner:

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Synthese:

2 tequila (silver)
1 green chartreuse
1 maraschino (luxardo)
.8 st. germain
~.7 lime juice

Shake until very cold, strain into cocktail glass

Garnish with lime wheel.

Now, I was doing my measuring with a fruit juicer, meaning that only a rough 2 Oz. measurement was available to me. So, this could be slightly off. However, I think it's quite a successful drink, especially considering it all came about as a response to my current lack of gin.

The tequila and lime is a very obvious combination, but both the St. Germain and Maraschino work surprisingly nicely with a base that I really hadn't considered before tonight (I'm not much of a tequila drinker). It's much smoother than the Last Word, which is both a good and bad thing. The tequila gives the drink a sort of velvety smokiness, and although I enjoy the rough edges on the gin, this ends up being a drink that is familiar without tasting like a margarita. There's a definite kick to the combination, and I was pleased to discover that it really wasn't "too summery," which is really all that comes to mind when I think of tequila and lime.

So, I encourage you all to try your own spins on your favorite cocktails, as you never really know when you'll come up with a gem. Do try this one out as well, although you may have to do a bit of experimenting with proportion to nail the taste you're looking for.

City of Mirth

I tried to climb one of the towers, once. One of the big ones, I mean. The little ones are easy to climb, you can just shimmy up those until you get lost in the fog and can’t see the ground and it starts to get dark. Then you go down, if you don’t want to die. But you can’t get your hands around the big ones, and so you can’t climb them. They’re smooth, smooth as polished gold. There are no ledges, no handholds, no nothing. So, when I say that I tried to climb one of the big towers, what I really did was hurl myself into the side of a tower a few times and then give up.

There are no doors in the towers of Mirth – none that I’ve found, at least. There are windows, though, high up; windows behind which lights must be turning on and off, because something is up there, blinking randomly in the fog. I’ve never seen a person behind one of those windows. I’ve never seen anyone walk out of or into a tower either. But there are Mirthians. Oh yes, they’re there in their gilded spires, playing with light-switches while all around them the ones who come to Mirth scream and disappear.

On the subject of pants

I've never really cared for cuffed pants. Granted, I don't wear trousers often, but when I do, I don't really want to look like some asshole who hangs out at Pitti and spends the rest of the year blogging about yachts and tassel loafers.

Thickening

Driving a 996TT around Boulder is a lot like driving a WRX around Boulder:

1) Both have four wheels
2) Both have four wheel drive
3) Both are manual
4) Both have boxer engines

Well, I guess that those are about the only similarities, really - at least on paper. One is a 480 HP pocket supercar, the other is a friendly little four-wheeled ski-lift. But they're both sort of burbly and comfortable, and, well, car-like, and the Porsche isn't nearly as intimidating as you'd think.

It has surprisingly excellent visibility, with the one caveat being that you're pretty much staring at everyone else's bumpers when you drive around, which is actually a bit unnerving when you're surrounding by 3-ton SUVs carrying distracted mothers too busy using their cell phones to pull over for you.

In the shop's lot, I found myself laughing like a maniac as the starter ticked over and the throaty woofle of the flat-six filled the bubble cabin. It sounds like a tyrannosaurus trying to clear its throat, in the absolute best of ways.

The gearshift is very light, as is the clutch. It's certainly not a workout to drive the turbo, and after the initial trepidation that comes with pulling out into traffic, working through the gears really is as easy as in my Subaru. There's no reason to turn on the radio, because once you're moving, the heavy, throbbing bass of the engine is fairly all-encompassing, and does a great - and probably necessary - job of reminding you what your'e driving.

It's lurking malevolently in my garage at the moment, hunched and brooding like some horrific beast-machine from a mechanized, dystopian future. I'm looking forward to the next few weeks.