Blood and Sand

So I have decided I am going to try and make this a far more educational blog.

Tonight's mocktail is Blood and Sand. Traditional this drink is a combination of scotch, cherry heering (a brandy), sweet vermouth and blood-orange juice but our is going to be orange juice, pineapple juice and grenadine.

The real cocktail was inspired by a movie by the same name. It was released in the early 1900's and then re-released in technicolor in 1941. It is a story of a boy who rises as a matador and then plumets when he falls in love with the drink and becomes entangled with the wrong kind of women and eventually dies by the horn of the bull.

Apparently the drink has fallen a bit out of fashion since its popular rise in cocktail guides of the '30s and '40s. Obviously it is recommended that fresh orange juice is used but don't worry, I won't be squeezing any oranges today and I'm sure that it will taste just fine.

There are some pictures of a Blood and Sand in a cocktail glass (which I'm sure is fun) but my book suggest it be served in a highball glass and so thats what we will be doing.

Highball glasses were constructed to originally hold a family of drinks referred to as highball (I kinda like that name, it reminds me of top-drawer). The glass is essentially a water glass with straight walls and it's larger size (8-12 oz) allows there to be ice in addition to the larger proportions of juices or alcohols. The most common high ball was Scotch whiskey and you've probably heard of Sex on the Beach. It is rumored that the first highball was mixed in Adams House in Boston (there are other rumored places but they are of little importance).

Oh yummy, yummy, yummy. This mixture of orange and pineapple juices and a dash of grenadine is that perfect mixture of sweetnesses without getting too sweet. I think the more tart grenadine cancels some of the sweetness out and giving it the blood-ish color making you just wish you could drink more and more (but for diabetes sake probably not a good idea). Since the original cocktail was frequently made with blood-oranges I'm slightly curious and think that maybe I'll try it like that.

Definitely a bottoms up!