Southern Migration

I recently wrote about how much we love Imbibe Magazine’s new cocktail book, The American Cocktail, and that we were planning to “drink the book” during the month of January as we traveled South in our teardrop trailer, affectionately known as the Alligator Teardrop.

We are not following through with this promise, for a number of reasons:

One is because we didn’t find a corporate sponsor for the blog (didn’t even try to find one, actually), I’m accountable to no one but me, which makes me lazy.

Two is that camping itself makes one lazy. We landed in a campground near Jacksonville, Florida, and are spending a lot of time sitting around the fire drinking El Presidente beer (which is much cheaper in Florida than in New York; in fact, the money that we’re saving might fund our whole trip).

The third reason is that camping makes you avoid civilization. It’s so peaceful here in the woods, with the owls, the rats (!), and the El Presidente. Why leave?

We did sneak out to a roadside fruit stand boasting Florida Oranges! Florida Grapefruit! Pecan Syrup! Authentic Georgia Cane Syrup! Unsuspecting, we got sucked into their tourist marketing scheme.

We caught the “Pecan Syrup”, because it had a label listing that the only three ingredients were corn syrup, artificial pecan flavoring, and artificial color. The oranges, which the kid convinced us were called something exciting like “Honey Dreams,” turned out to be plain old navel oranges. And Authentic Georgia Cane Syrup? A fancy name for molasses.

But Leah says, when life gives you lemons (or an excess of some other citrus fruit), make cocktails. The Southern Migration may be best attempted in the South in winter, if only because of the abundance available citrus fruit (of suspicious origin) and the fresh “Florida” tomatoes we got at the stand that actually taste like fresh tomatoes.

Don’t expect to see this cocktail at the Lounge anytime soon. However, if you’ve got some molasses in your cupboard, imported grapefruits, and a local grocery store that carries tomatoes in winter that don’t taste like rocks, give it a whirl. It’s incredibly delicious. But beware tourist traps (like billboards advertising “87 more miles to South of the Border!”) and don’t drink too many of these or you’ll get a wicked headache and yet another reason to never leave the campsite.

Follow our traveling adventures at www.alligatorteardrop.com!

Southern Migration

1.5 ounces tequila

the juice from 1/2 grapefruit (fresh-squeezed)

1/4 ripe tomato, chopped

1/2 ounce molasses, also known as Georgia Cane Syrup

Muddle tequila, tomato, and molasses in a shaker. Shake with ice. Pour over ice in a rocks glass, adding grapefruit juice last.

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.