Drink, Some General Remarks for a Pretty Good Kitchen

I married a teetotaler, so I like to say that I drink for the both of us. But hey, I’ve also come to appreciate that those mocktails and juice mash-ups can be even more divine than… it’s hard to say, but the truth will out… wine.

I’ll never forget sidling up to the bar of a chain-type restaurant gig in a new, upscale mall arrangement near us. I ordered my customary glass of mid-list vino. (It was winter, the wine was red.) Meanwhile, Mr. Hollywood requested

his customary “mix of juices, easy on the cranberry, maybe a hit of ginger ale…” The wine was meh; but the sip I got from the non-alcoholic mash-up was awesome! The bartender had taken creative liberties with infusions of this and muddled-up that. The result was a masterpiece of refreshment and delight. So. you can find posts about wine here, sure, and beer and spirits and such. (I work occasionally at a local farm winery, after all, and do love adult beverages.) But that’s not all, no way, no how. There’s much in the world of drink to explore, and with an eco-nomical bent, to boot.

Matter of fact, my presently favorite day-drink (which also works great as a wine cooler mixer, if the wine alone’s not doing it) is iced tea, passive-brewed*, made from any one or a mix of Celestial Seasoning‘s fruit and/or “Zinger” blends. (They’re not paying me.) The results taste like the Kool-Aid (imaginatively insert that perky little copyright symbol here) of my childhood. No kidding. And I don’t even add sugar, though you could.

Mr. Hollywood is born and bred South, so I keep a pitcher of classic black iced tea in the fridge at all times. He likes Luzianne brand, though his mom drinks Lipton. You can get the old fashioned bags and let them take their own sweet time to steep, or you can go with the 3-5 minute “cold brew” version pictured here. I don’t know (and possibly don’t want to know) how they do it so that you stick bags into room temp water and three (to five) minutes later have honest to goodness iced tea. But there it is. I’m hooked.

Oops, back on track – Drink, the Big Picture Philosophy (of a sort) here:

But gosh, already I digress. By way of a straightforward drinks philosophy here at PrettyGoodKitchen, a few things: Eco-nomically speaking, we’ll tackle price, splurging and conserving; source and packaging; recipe suggestions for sure; and more!

Specifics in brief: Alcohol is optional (see above). Wine is good, and it’s really okay to drink whatever color makes you happy; on ice if that’s your thing (it slows me down on a hot day), and with an eye to eco-friendliness (more on that in upcoming posts). Beer – wow, there’s a lot of great stuff coming out of little places and some downright genius (beer in old tequila barrels, anyone?!). The mass-produced “lights” (think Bud – and it’s always “Bud” isn’t it, not “Budweiser”) aren’t going anywhere and can be just thing on a hot day post manual labor. Cocktails are the canvas of a whole category of artiste, so we’ll have some fun with that, too, chasing down mixology wizardry.

We’ll talk about eco-friendly tea – hot and iced; white, green, black, and tisanes (fancy for “herbal”). I love them all. Coffee is indispensable, though I don’t mind you mixing in chicory New Orleans-style. Just don’t call it the same thing. Coffee. Someone, please tell me how it is that the people of Scandinavia – my people, blood-wise – are such doggone coffee drinkers? It’s even got a time of day “afternoon coffee.” (Yes, I’ll get to the Brits and their “tea.”) Anyway, I grew up on the stuff and can’t imagine life without it. But it doesn’t grow near where I live now any better than it grows in the northern Minnesota of my childhood. So, we’ll talk eco-friendly approaches from sourcing to packaging to preparing.

Then, there’s water. Hello, at the foundation of every other drink, yes? We’ll talk plastic bottles and their many alternatives, of course, conservation and filtering yadda yadda, as well as simply marvel at the wonder of our blue-green planet awash in the most basic necessity of our silly fragile selves.

So, Cheers! Prost! Skol! To you! ~