Sunday, March 7, 2010

No Medals in the Luge Event


Last week the ad agency I work at hosted a party, with drinks sponsored by our premium vodka client. Since I don’t care about vodka none of the specialty drinks enticed me, but I felt I to try the White Cosmo for research purposes.

As the bartender mixed my cocktail, I floated my theory about gin being on the cusp of replacing vodka as the go-to Gen X and Y drink. He said he hadn’t seen much evidence of that. Maybe it’s too soon, but it’s going to happen. When he was finished mixing the drink, he poured it into the vodka luge.

Yes, vodka luge.

Now that I think of it, I had heard of ice sculptures through which drinks were poured — the U.K. office of the agency’s global network had scandalized its provincial U.S. colleagues one Christmas party (not holiday, Christmas; that’s the way they do it in the U.K.) with anatomically correct ice sculptures that required the putting of one’s mouth on the genitals of his or her choice to receive the drink directly, without benefit of a glass — but I didn’t know the name of it as an alcohol delivery system until I described the ice sculpture to a 25-year old colleague and said, “Have you ever heard of such a thing?!” and she said, “Uh, yeah, I went to college.”

Uh, thanks.

This vodka luge did not require any mouth-to-ice contact or a college degree; a glass was put under the chute exit. But despite the fact that most of the specialty drinks on the menu were called or actually were some version of a martini, there were no martini glasses in sight. My White Cosmo fell out of the luge into a heavy, squat old-fashioned glass.

That alone would have meant some deductions from this judge. But the ingredients are what kept the White Cosmo out of the medals. Citroen vodka, white cranberry juice and fresh lemon juice. Totally missing were the orange-flavored liquor, either Triple Sec or Cointreau or as Reader Barbara M. suggested Grand Marnier, and the lime juice. I had one sip, and that was enough. No one else who tried it was impressed. It tasted mostly like spiked lemonade.

By the way, that spelling of citroen is correct. I wondered about it, since to my mind citron = lemon and citroen = car, but it turns out that citroen is Dutch for lemon. The Citroen car was founded by a Dutch man by that name. So a Citroen car is literally a lemon. As is the White Cosmo.

The search continues.

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