Imbibe Magazine and Felicia: BFF's

Imbibe Magazine is one of Felicia's BFF's. The go-to mag for all things drinkable, Imbibe partnered with Metaxa in a cocktail contest that Leah placed third in; and they published one of Leah's drunken coffee recipes on their website. Now that coffee recipe can hang out on your coffee table like a living room whore because it is included in Imbibe's very first cocktail book, published this month: The American Cocktail. This nifty book contains 50 creative and accessible recipes collected from smart bartenders around the states. We are honored to be included.

And with the book, an idea was born at our kitchen table, over cocktails, of course: This winter, Leah and I will "Cook the Book," or as one might say in cocktail-speak, "Drink the Book." While the snow flies, we hope to drink our way through all fifty cocktails and write about them on the blog as we go. This should be particularly interesting because of my freakish allergies and my lame-o substitutions when I can't have an ingredient (or two or three).

Will we succeed in Drinking The Book? Depends. No. Maybe. Probably not. Why not? Perhaps we'll only make a few, or perhaps we'll make them all. It is entirely possible that we will get distracted by raking leaves, broken toilet handles, the carpenter ant infestation in the wall at home, shoveling snow (noooooooo!), paying the bills, holidays, weddings, Pittsburgh Steelers games, drinking, playing music, and life's other joys and woes.

But we're going to start on the right track, and at least pretend that we're going to successfully Drink the Book. So here's our first cocktail: The Verde Maria (pictured above), which revolves around avocado. I chose the Verde Maria as our first Drink the Book recipe because it is green, and because the ingredients were kinda weird but kinda mouth-watering at the same time, like guacamole in a glass.

Because we couldn't get our hands on tomatillos, and because I can't eat onions (eyes swell here for emphasis), we didn't quite get it right. However, Leah liked the texture a lot (avocado-tequila smoothie, anyone?). A pinch of salt helped bring out the flavors.

Since we can't publish the full recipes from the book, you have two choices. One is to buy a copy of The American Cocktail and follow along. The other is equally exciting: check back here in the near future and we will post a new drink created by Leah that was inspired by the Verde Maria.

Imbibing and inspiration: Yes. Bring it on. Cheers.