Me vs. The Machine: I PWN C0ckta1ls! Part One + The Waldorf

[xraytheenforcer]

So, about a month ago we (the magazine) called in something known as the Lazy Drinker. This is a machine that is supposed to fulfill all of your cocktailian needs -- a cooler, a bunch of Tygon tubing, Solenoid-driven spigots, compressed CO2, and a computer with a huge database of completely undrinkable swill (a main ingredient for many seems to be Southern Comfort).

Now, I say that this shit is an abomination -- make your own fucking cocktails, pay someone humanoid to do it, drink beer, or just get the fuck off the sauce altogether. So we devised a contest: Martha vs. The Machine**. We both mix cocktails, and the various editors, friends, fact checkers, interns and hangers-on judge who makes 'em best (vs. who can make 'em fast. I know the machine will kick my ass in that arena).

We (web editors Megan and John and I) spent TWO DAYS trying to get this thing together and functional; TWO DAYS during which my vulture-like colleagues sniffed around the good-quality booze Megan and I had laid in for the experiment (Patron Silver, Plymouth gin, Ketel One, Old Overholt). No, motherfuckers, you cannot have a cocktail, now, at 2PM when I have pages to go to the printer tonight. Feh.

Well, tonight my pages were out. We still can't get the fucking LAZY-AS-FUCK Drinker to function properly. But I relented and made the web editor a Hearst Cocktail (aka The Disgruntled Journalist). Next thing I know, our news editor has swiped the vodka and is MIXING IT WITH GATORADE. WTF?!?! I got 2 kinds of vermouth, cointreau, all the fixings for a whole passel of cocktails including margaritas...and you take my high-end vodka and splash in some Gator-fucking-ade. Pearls before swine, yea verily.

I'll still beat the tubing off the Shiftless Drinker -- who else you gonna complain to about your wife leaving you and takin' the dog -- and I DON'T make cocktails called the Mexican Clit, the Flying Purple Masturbator, or anything that calls for HypnotiQ, Alize, or bears the name of a racial group and a sex act.

To quench the existential, cocktail-based pain (and to celebrate having broadband in the apartment again), a recipe:

The Waldorf Cocktail
2 oz. Rye Whiskey
3/4 oz. Sweet Vermouth
2 dashes Angostura Bitters
Ricard

Add Ricard to the mixing glass, swirl, and the discard. Add ice to the mixing glass, then remaining ingredients. Stir, then strain into a cold cocktail glass. Bitch about the no-class put-ons (knowning full well you've had more than your fair share of gin-and-juices in the past.)

**The whole ordeal will be on the web at some point. I'll post links soon enough.

Comments

[kalbear.livejournal.com]

That sounds tasty. :)

[icemannorth.livejournal.com]

Damn, you telling me that you guys still haven't made the cocktail machine work?

[sivestrit.livejournal.com]

Martha for the win :)

BTW, I still envy US journalists for getting fact checkers to go over their work

[zakalwe7.livejournal.com]

Bring em to LA!

As promised

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

www.crankycocktail.com

Not all of the content is up yet, but all of my back-entries should be up by tomorrow.

Design is another issue, of course. That may take a bit longer.