Soviet Bubbly who knew?

I’m just emoting that’s all.

  
THIS IS A REASON TO BUY MOSCATO WHAAAAAT!? yes.

I adore this cocktail gleaned from the wisdom and stories of The CCCP Cook Book. Which rocks.

Thank you Emily Hilligoss for the suggestion.

Oh, and yes I know it only really is champagne if it comes from the region in France but let us just refer to it as champagne because it is like “ya know what I mean when I say champagne”. Unless I state otherwise, I mean sparkling wine.

I made this cocktail not because it sounded like something I’d want to drink. I made it as an excuse to get my hands on some Benedictine. Which I am now having fun employing in a new batch of cocktail experimentation. Even if I weren’t doing that I’d say it was worth the buy because I have now made this cocktail quite a few times. It’s a repeater, y’all!

By the way, I bought Fetzer moscato. At Rite Aid. That is my life. I am buying wine at Rite Aid.

How can I describe this…it is balanced. The sweet, the herbaceous nature of Benedictine, the bubbles of the sparkling wine smoothed by the dry white. My goodness.

Incidentally, the cookbook calls for Soviet champagne. If you have a bottle of champagne leftover from those ripping good days of the Soviet Union, crack er’ open. Otherwise some other such thing will work. It needn’t be fancy. The original recipe is for a lot of people but remember so was the Soviet Union. In theory. There are many theories that don’t work out so well though.

This cocktail is not one of them. It is totally working out for me. The cookbook gives proportions for six drinks. The best way I could reduce it for my measuring purposes was to make 1/5 of a drink so that is what I am giving you. Whee.

There is some fun history in the book about the Soviet team that invented the way to make champagne cheaply in tanks because the government mandated that there needed to be a way to make quick n’ cheap bubbly for the people. So they did okay on that, seeing as Moët & Chandon got the method licensed to them in 1975.

I made do with what I had on hand. I repeat: no need to get fancy. After all the subtitle to this recipe was “working class champagne”. As opposed to royalty champagne? Je ne sais pas.

Soviet Champagne Cocktail adapted from The CCCP Cook Book
60 ml Soviet Champagne (sparkling wine, y’all, in the spirit of thriftiness I say use whatever brand floats your budget boat)
60 ml dry white wine (I tried this with a couple different types and all were fine, use what ya got)
30 ml white muscat wine (I used Fetzer moscato)
15 ml Benedictine
15 ml cognac
15 ml tinned fruit (in the notes they suggest cherries–I didn’t have these canned but had some in the freezer)
30 ml ice
Mix all and add ice and fruit. Yea.

Pink Lime and Meh

  
You will be lured.

It will be on sale.

This little can of Pampelonne.

Cute packaging and ease.

At your booze store.
Or at Whole Foods.
You will succumb.
Let me express this in haiku:

It is Rosé Lime.
Juice yet some funk and lime notes.
Good but not enough.

It is kinda tasty? If you need wine in a can, go ahead buy this. It is so FUCKING cute. 
Friggin’ pink Breton stripes.

Also if you need wine in a can your problems are worse than meh beverages.

It is like a pink frock you feel vulnerable in but once you in it you are like “fuck I’m wearing pink!” and you feel okay, if not temporarily fulfilled. Cause sometimes you just need things to be easy and tasty enough. That is this.

More on pink frocks soon. That could be important.

Wine I’d more than Grocery-Store settle for

 

A couple weeks ago I mentioned Ravenswood. It is my go-to grocery store wine. It had earned my adoration both in taste and price but got my heart when it was the wine that made my best friend start liking wine. He liked the dark moodiness of the label and name. And I think that somehow made him accept the taste.

And now he’ll drink wine with me. 

Extra dark name extra dark Label extra dark wine dark mood.
There are many dark berries in this.

Duh.

Ravenswood Old Vine Zinfandel Lodi Vintage 2013

Blackberry is the first berry I got. Then some strawberry snuck its face in like “hey! happiness in darkness, my morbid friends!”

It is jam. Dark, morbid delicious jam out of a glass.

There is some earth. The type of earth that has vines and trees sprouting from it, not dry, not damp, just right on a dark spring night.

Like picture that thou art 13 and going through a Wiccan phase and in the park with your best friend around 10 at night (taking a neighborhood walk) and the two of you, high on life, are frolicking and start rolling in the grass. That is the earth in this wine. Young, semi-dewy night earth.

Sniffing (huffing deeply) it I got a lot of berries and some whiff of maybe…flowers? honeysuckle? je ne sais…. like so unsure I’m not even gonna add the “pas”.
I taste some allspice hiding in the dark.

First sip gave an extremely acid ending but that was straight out of the fridge (keep all wine there if your home is warm as it is in LA unless you want your wine tainted by heat) but then I gave this wine some time to get some air and it softened so the scid was just right, running down the sides of my tongue and tickling the back of my tongue at the mid-point and the end in a delightful way.

Delightful. Available at your supermarket. Affordable. I dig. You can bring Ravenswood to my party any day.

The last of the octopod wine

  
And yes octopuses is the proper plural but this wine is actually called The Octopod.

The Octopod Furlong Estates Vineyard Syrah 2010

Aged in both american and french barrels it tastes appropriately international.
Which is to say it is both subtle and pungent in the same sip.
I dunno. I never do.
There are notes of cherry and pecans that have been roasted with some chili powder (specific enough?) and smoke.

Medium body.

Like, zero tannins, dudes. You could swill it if you are capable of swilling a dense-ish iced mocha.

Now granted I was in fact into swilling this the night I opened it but stopped mid-bottle, it still took a couple nights for me to get through it. Lightweight.

But you. You Hard Core Sipper you.

You’ll sip. And want to swill. And probably will and it’ll be great. Because it is wine and it is not like swilling say, a martini. Which if you are me you should REALLY just sip, not swill. Or you will be sorry or asleep or doing things you regret. Ok more likely saying things you regret. Ya know. And then there were those Instagram photos.

Oh right the wine. As I said, medium in body. Also medium in soul but this still has more soul than anything you will find at your supermarket.

There is a vine-y ness underlying all which is okay when thou art in the mood. I am not the biggest fan of vine. Or the Vine platform in general because fuck soundbites. Ugh never use Vine. It makes me ALMOST as annoyed as GIFs (death of good writing/art/life).

Of all the wines I have sampled from Eight Arms I still like The Tentacle the best. But if you are a lover of the vine-y taste this may be your bag, baby.
I liked it a lot. Like I’d totally drink it so let us not discount it because of the sucking-on-a-vine nature. That CAN be a plus.

All in all I give this wine a “doable” rating. As in I like some wines better but this one fills the bill in it’s own delicious way. I’m not sorry. It is the Hershey kiss to my gourmet European chocolate bar.

ps I TOTES always have Hershey kisses on hand to fill my bill.