I admit that sometimes I can get suckered in just by awesome photography and food-styling, but how can this not be wonderful? Fresh tomatoes, fresh herbs, fresh peppers, and yummy yummy vodka in my tummy? SOLD.

What’s even cooler is how utterly basic and easy this recipe from The Realistic Housewife is; your only equipment is a mason jar, a knife, a strainer, and a cutting board.

Here’s what you’ll need and what to do:

Add tomato juice and Worcestershire sauce to taste.

(Via Liqurious)

Last night, as we were making some gazpacho for dinner, Meredith and I discussed what to do with the leftover tomato juice. Naturally, our first thought was to bring booze into the mix.

We’re currently vodka-less (well, we do have some Van Gogh Dutch Caramel and some Pinnacle Whipped Cream, but those would be pretty nasty with tomato juice), so I said “What about using some Hendrick’s Gin? It’s cucumber-y, which pairs nicely with the tomato, and we actually have it here.”

We didn’t really get much further with the discussion, because then it was time to eat the gazpacho.

But here I am today, trawling the depths of the internet looking for tasty drink recipes for you guys, and look what I found on Liqurious: Blood-less Bloody Mary’s!

My first thought was “wouldn’t it be more accurate to call them Plasma Mary’s?” Turns out that that’s exactly what Punk Domestics did. Smart cookies!

Plasma Mary

To make tomato water without going through the rigors of canning 100 pounds of tomatoes, simply blitz a few tomatoes in a food processor just enough to break them down, then strain through a few layers of cheesecloth.

2 oz tomato water
1 oz cucumber-infused vodka
1/4 oz (1-1/2 tsp) lemon juice
dash hot sauce
Spicy salted rim (see below)

For the rim, combine roughly equal portions of kosher salt, chili powder and ground cumin. (If you want a finer texture, use table salt or give the kosher salt a whir in a food processor for a second or two.) Dip the rim of the glass in water or vodka, lift directly out, hold the glass (still inverted) in the air for a couple seconds, then rest it into the spice mix.

Mix the remaining ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Stir aggressively to chill. (Stirring gives it a thicker consistency and doesn’t introduce air bubbles into the cocktail.) Strain into the rimmed cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon wheel or cucumber round.

Ed. note: For instructions on making your own cucumber-infused vodka, click the link above. Alternatively, you could also probably find a ready-made cucumber vodka at finer liquor stores — but where’s the fun in that?

(Via Liqurious, by way of Punk Domestics)

Sakebii is a new social drinking app for the iPhone that allows users to invite friends out to get crunk. Now, there are already a lot of apps like this out there, but it seems like Sakebii is trying to set itself apart by keeping things small.

Sakebii limits the number of friends within your network to 30 people — which still seems like a lot to me. If I walk into a bar and see more people than there are seats, it’s too full. But it’s still a decent concept that insulates you from potentially annoying acquaintances from popping in and crashing the party.

It’s still in development, but once it’s launched, I might try it out — if only in the hopes that the user interface is as adorable as the images on the “how to” page make it out to be!

(Via TechInAsia.com)

It’s sort of amazing that it took until 2012 for someone to create a flavored spirit specifically for Mardi Gras, a week-long celebration of drunkeness. I’ve never been to New Orleans period, let alone during Mardi Gras, but it’s always depicted as this epically-debaucherous gauntlet of booze. I’ve always imagined it must be like having Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve one day after another, but twice as long and with no family drama to harsh the buzz of my usually copious amounts of drinking.

Think of how much more festive drinking yourself to death would be if you did it in New Orleans during Mardi Gras instead of Las Vegas during…days that end in ‘y’.

Anyway, here’s the recipe for the ‘Purple, Green, and Gold’, as posted on A Mountain of Crushed Ice:

• 2 oz Lucky Player King Cake Vodka
• 0.5 oz fresh lime juice
• 0.25 oz simple syrup
• 1 oz grapefruit juice (yellow)
• 1 oz pineapple juice
• a handful fresh mint leaves, torn

Add to shaker and shake hard with ice, double strain into a purple sugar-rimmed cocktail glass and garnish with a mint crown.

(Via Liqurious, courtesy of Adrienne!)

I bookmarked this cocktail recipe a few weeks ago — I can’t remember if I found it via Liqurious or Serious Eats — but it’s ultimately courtesy of Olga at Mango & Tomato, a great foodie blog featuring original recipes and restaurant reviews from Olga’s adventures in food-tourism.

Much like Olga confesses in her post, as a kid I was more likely to spring for a glass of tomato juice or V8 (seasoned with a ridiculous amount of black pepper) than a milk shake or soda.

Unfortunately, really awesome Bloody Marys are hard to come by. I tend to hate pre-maid mixes, and usually “fresh” ones consist of little beyond ice, tomato juice, rail vodka, and a sad stalk of celery.

This one, Naked Jay Vodka’s “Slippery Tomato”, sounds awesome though:

Well, sort of. It’s hanging on by a thread in the mid-Atlantic, what with the hurricane-level showers we’ve been dealing with the last few weeks.

But I just got one year older today, I wore a hoodie for the first time in months, and Dogfish Head’s Punk’n Ale is finally in my tummy again. So it feels Fall-y. Decline-y. Dying-y.

But Karen at Tasty Trials offered up this last gasp of summery deliciousness recently—the Raspberry Limoncello cocktail:

To make:

Muddle lemon, basil, raspberries in a glass, until raspberries and lemon are well mashed. Fill glass with ice. Add limoncello, vodka and sugar (if using). Stir. Top with champagne.

Drink up! I doubt there will be a post tomorrow, as I’m leaving ass-early in the morning for Chicago to sling my wares at Renegade Handmade this weekend, so have a fun one, and if you’re gonna be in Chicago, swing by Wicker Park (Division St. side) to say hi!

(Photo & cocktail courtesy of Karen at Tasty Trials)

Poor Canada. Actually, no; poor Canadian liquor companies.

Like the U.S., Canada is saddled with a pretty sad rep abroad when it comes to its alcoholic exports. Both nations have thriving microbreweries, but by and large the rest of the world only knows us for Budweiser and Molson, respectively. Meanwhile, we’re inundated with awesome gin from Scotland (Hendrick’s), excellent vodka from—seriously—France (Grey Goose), and some seriously amazing rum from Portugal (El Dorado). Not to mention the tidal wave of awesome beers from Belgium and Germany!

Which means that the average Canadian beverage company is reduced to some pretty insane levels of gimmickry to make in-roads internationally. To wit: Frozen Ghost Vodka.

Sure, every product should have a story behind it, but to go to the lengths these guys have to drum up interest in some vodka? If it’s that awesome, shouldn’t its quality do most of the heavy lifting for you, marketing-wise?

(Via The Hairpin, courtesy of Adj!)

I apologize for the lack of a WTF post yesterday; I was playing hooky and losing my body weight in sweat at the ballpark watching the Orioles lose to the Red Sox.

It was hot. Like, unnaturally hot. When I left the house last night at 11pm to pick up our pizza for dinner, it was 90°. Right now it’s 102°. Tomorrow’s projected high? 106°. DO. NOT. WANT.

Anyway…what better way to stay cool than a refreshing libation? This tasty treat is courtesy of Carrie Vibert at Poet In The Pantry. Looks and sounds delicious, but we need a snappier name for…

Blueberry Lemonade for Mamas and Papas

Ingredients:

• ice cubes (Carrie suggests freezing blueberries in the cubes for presentation)
• 2 oz blueberry vodka (I recommend Stolichnaya’s)
• 3 oz lemonade (Store-bought is OK, I guess, but seriously: make your own. Juice of 1 lemon, 1/2-1 Tbsp. of preferred sweetener, and a pint of club soda should do it. Experiment with those ratios until you hit on something you like.)
• slice of lemon

Drop some ice cubes into your glass. Pour the blueberry vodka and lemonade over them. Stir. Garnish with a slice of lemon. Get crunk!

Smirnoff? Absolut? Seagram’s?! NO, Michael Bay. No.

I get that you need to offer parents some way to dull the pain of sitting through your lump of childhood-ruining waste, but this is not the way. In fact, I cannot think of a WORSE way to add another $8 on top of a $12 ticket than being forced to drink “Michael Bay’s X-Plode Juice” while losing two hours of my life. $20 to be trapped in a life-sucking machine? Talk about a Pit of Despair.

(If this Youtube analogy causes Michael Bay to re-make Princess Bride, I will jump right out my f@#king window.)

(Via ForkParty.com)

For those of you not on the East coast…be very, very thankful. Yesterday our temp topped out at around 96° F, and today we’re expecting it to hit triple-digits.

So of course what better way to cool down and take your mind off the heat than some refreshing cocktails? My wife and I met our good friends Adrienne & Tony for drinks and had some truly delicious concoctions, courtesy of our friend Anna at @bad_decisions. First up, the “Delicious Hibiscus” (N.B., this is not its official name. None of us can recall if it even has one, but this works for the purposes of blogging):

Vodka, champagne, and either creme de cassis or hibiscus syrup (can’t remember which!), garnished with a hibiscus blossom. Pretty to look at and pretty tasty in my tum-tum. Plus, the blossom is edible and very yummy—tastes like a thicker Fruit Roll-Up, or a sweeter version of fruit leather.

Next, Anna made us the “Sensation”, which is a lot like a mojito, but served in a martini glass and made with gin instead of rum:

Lime juice, fresh mint, maraschino liqueur, gin, and served in a sugar-rimmed glass (in lieu of simple syrup or muddling the sugar and mint in a tall glass like a traditional mojito.)

Anything in particular you guys are imbibing to keep cool as the weather heats up? Let me know in the comments section below!