A Shandy is Dandy

Continuing with stories from Glass Half Full's camping adventure, today's post is about a great summer drink called the shandy. 

A shandy is a half-and-half mixture of beer and carbonated lemonade, or beer and ginger beer. Our camping trip was basically a drinking marathon, and I intended to stay in the running, so the shandy was a good choice for me.

The drink in this picture is a mixture of half Busch Light and half San Pellegrino Limonata. It was so refreshing, and I was able to have a drink in my hand at all times. 

Because I was cutting this with lemonade, I think I could have used a stronger beer than Busch Light. I'll try that at home sometime, but again, I felt this was the perfect drink for camping. 

I also tried mixing the beer with ginger beer. I didn't like that nearly as much. I'll save the ginger beer for Moscow Mules.

Roughing It

Glass Half Full spent the weekend camping with friends. This picture isn't the best, but I chose it because it captures a rare patch of sun we had over the three rainy days we spent there. I also chose this picture because it shows our makeshift bar. 

After setting up our tents and placing our coolers full of beer around a tree, we set up this table and put out some of our other alcoholic options. That Playmate cooler is full of ice to add to drinks so we didn't have to fish dirty ice out of a cooler full of beer (we did end up doing that once or twice though). We had citrus fruits--no risk of getting scurvy during our trip. The box is full of sangria from Target. Don't knock it until you try it; it was perfect for camping. We also had vodka, mixers and a couple of flasks floating around.

Another thing this makeshift bar represents to me is what great friends I have. I love knowing that we are not just going to survive, we are going to get through things in style. Everyone pulls their weight and contributes.

About 10 minutes after this picture was taken, Ranger Rick from the DNR pulled up and told us we couldn't have hard liquor in a state park. He must have meant we couldn't have it "showing" because he just watched as we put the hard stuff in a cooler. 

Sangria

This is a perfect drink for sitting and sipping on the patio. I made this using cheap sangria I buy at The World Market. 

Recipe: 

• Screw off the cap of the beautiful bottle. 
  
• Pour in glass full of ice. 
  
• Add a smidge of orange liquor or in this case I used DeKemper Peach Schnapps because,
  
• I also added three frozen peaches  
  
• I also added a nice chunk of orange 
  
• I should have added a nice chunk of lime
  

I'm going camping this weekend. As I'm drinking my sangria I'm planning what I'm going to drink on my adventure. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

Mango Margarita Monday

Monday night we were on our way to Tasty Tacos for some really good fast food when we remembered we always feel kind of sick after eating there. So we stopped at the Mexican Market instead. I bought the stuff to make quesadillas. I also purchased some frozen mango stuff so I could make mango margaritas. 

I was so close to having food made for me, and I now found myself in the kitchen with food to prepare. Here's a tip for you when you find yourself in the same position: Make the drinks first.

Recipe for Mango Margaritas:

• Two shots of tequila
• Two shots of Cointreau
• 4 tablespoons of frozen Minute Maid Limeade
• 2 cups of something fizzy. I used sparkling mineral water.
• 1 container frozen Mango stuff (see picture)
• Some ice

Blend together. Serve in glass rimmed with salt and garnished with a lime wedge. Have the first drink yourself to make sure it's up to your standards, then serve the other to your husband with a smile on your face. Cook dinner at a leisurely pace while sipping drink.

One nice surprise, because I can't read Spanish, I didn't notice the mango stuff had chili pepper in it. Notice the red flecks in the margarita picture and notice the chili pepper that I didn't notice on the mango carton.

Go Cubs Go

I'm a Cubs fan. On a recent trip to Chicago to watch a game, we opted to stay at a friends house and drink instead of enjoying the expensive Chicago nightlife. I think city folk tend to want to impress their country bumpkin visitors with mysterious concoctions they think we can't get in these parts. I'm fine with that because on this particular trip I was introduced to the world's easiest pina colada.

Recipe:

Dole Pina Colada Juice

Rum--My host used Captain Morgan Parrot Bay Lime Rum because he felt like coconut rum would make it too coconutty. I disagree. I think there is no such thing as too coconutty. I would use my favorite summer drink rum, Malibu Coconut rum.  I also think it would be good with a chunk of pineapple and a maricino cherry or two as a garnish. The Cubs glass was a nice touch.

I've been waiting for the Cubs to string together a couple of wins before I shared this post. Needless to say I've been waiting for some time. Drinking helps when you're a Cubs fan.

Drink Your Medicine

A spoon full of sugar may help the medicine go down, but pretending like your medicine is a fancy Italian cocktail is even better in my opinion. Here's a scenario that happens more often than I care to admit at my house: eat homemade meatball pizza, drink bottle of cheap Lambrusco, feel kind of sick.

When that happens to me I like to pretend like it's time for an after dinner drink and I reach for the Brioschi. As far as I can tell, Brioschi is like an Italian Alka Seltzer only cooler. First, you gotta love the blue container with the red Brioschi. Second, it is like little pellets and reminds me of rat poison or something.

I like to put a capful of Brioschi in the Marta Double Old Fashioned glass and sip it down like a fancy cocktail.  Bellissimo!

Book Club & Blue Margaritas

Last night was book club night. We went to a Mexican joint where we ended up being one of two book clubs meeting there. We were definitely the coolest book club. Our gracious host not only picked a good book, Canone Inverso by Paolo Maurensig, she treated us to appetizers and margaritas. Our second pitcher of margaritas was blue.

I promised I'd do a little research and explain what made them blue. We knew it was Blue Curacoa. K was correct that it is pronounced kyur-ə-ˌsō. It's basically orange liquor with blue coloring added. 

We all agreed that it was sweeter than our pitcher of regular old green margaritas. I have a couple of theories on that, just like we had a couple of theories on the book. It could be that because they need to add enough of the blue curacoa to make the drink visibly blue, they added more of the sweeter blue curacoa and less of the tart tequila. Or, it could be that looking at something blue plays a trick on your mind and makes you think that it is sweet. Either way, somebody sold their soul to the devil. Sorry, couldn't resist a little book club inside joke. 

Although I hated the artificial color of the Hurricane, for some reason I like the concept of blue curacoa making drinks blue. I'm going to track down a couple more blue drinks and tell you about them in future posts. Until then, what do you think of blue drinks?