tales from the wine cellar

For your information, that's supposed to be a takeoff on Tales from the Crypt.

Why? Because this is a horror story. We are going to discuss a topic of deepest fear, staggering infamy, and gruesome depravity. Abominations of nature, travesties against humanity.

In other words, yucky drinks.

Hanging around bartender's school, one tends to hear about libations which seem, after the ingredient lists are reviewed, somewhat questionable. These drinks often don't seem as if they were born of any rational or sane mind.

They seem, frankly, just plain disgust-o.

Anyone ever heard of a "red-eye"?

It's half beer, half tomato juice, and one raw egg.

Eeee-YUCK.

Wade, the head of the bartender's school I attend, was talking about red-eyes with another student last Saturday, and I overheard. He claimed that the person he'd heard about it from (apparently a heavy drinker) endorsed the red-eye as an end-all hangover cure.

To me it sounds more like an end-all, period.

Back in Korea I knew this one South African fellow named Jay. He knew all about drinking. He belonged to the "quick sticks" school of Friday night boozery. He believed that a proper pregame should include downing a fifth of soju before hitting the first bar. Soju—the Korean firewater, resembling sweet vodka—is not strong stuff. It's just about 40 proof. But to down a whole bottle of it before the night's binge commences...well, that's a whole different kettle of fish. Nonetheless, I gave it a try. I downed a bottle and went out on the town. Don't remember much after that.

Anyway, all the island's expatriates were down at Jazz Bar one night, standing around, shooting the breeze, throwing darts, chatting with the bartenders, and just generally unwinding after another hard week. I was halfway through a B & B and feeling pretty mellow. Over my right shoulder I could hear Jay talking to Adam.
"You ever heard of a Mexican asshole?" Jay asked, in his languorous way.
"No," Adam answered. "What's in that?"
"It's half tequila and half Tabasco."
"F—in' hell, mate," Adam said, with a record-setting grimace on his face.

That drink has impinged itself upon my consciousness. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the sheer, unadulterated, loathsome horror of it. Drinks, as I understand it, are meant to be taken for enjoyment. For pleasure. For fun. Shooting something like a Mexican asshole seems both fatuous and masochistic. I resent the mere thought.

Masochism aside, some of the shots that we've learned about in school—which are apparently popular—sound nasty.

Ever heard of a Scooby Snack?

It's revolting. Midori (melon liqueur), crème de bananes, Malibu (coconut rum), and pineapple juice. And cream. Shaken, then shot.

Enough said.

BLARGH.

It's a given that, anywhere you go in the world of hooch, you'll run across something disgusting. Even the vaunted Bartender's Bible conceals a few stinkers within its pages.

Don't believe me? Try a jillionaire. It's bourbon, triple sec, grenadine, and an egg white.

Yes, an egg white.

The rest of those ingredients would be nasty enough by themselves (whoever thought it was a good idea to mix bourbon and grenadine, for Pete's sake?!?).

But add an egg white, and this thing turns into an all-out suckfest.

No drink with an egg white in it has ever turned out well, in my experience (except for the Tom and Jerry, where they are whipped into soft peaks.) Egg whites normally make a drink foamy, slimy and somewhat sticky on the draw. Combine that with the rotten combo of bourbon whiskey, orange liqueur, and cherry syrup, and...

Oh, I can just see your cute little faces puckering up as I type this!

I've been on my quest to find the Perfect Drink for about three years now, and I've mixed, sampled and tested a lot of drinks. My success rate is probably something like five percent. For every five or six goodish drinks that I find, I have to choke down 95 stinkers. Learn from my mistakes. Through excruciating trial-and-error, I've compiled a list of drink no-nos to avoid at all costs, in my humble opinion. Peruse them at your leisure:

• egg whites. I just explained this. Makes the drink slimy and sticky and yucky. 
• combining SoCo and bitters. These do not mix, trust me. You know what Southern Comfort and bitters taste like when they're in the same drink together? Cough syrup.
• Jägermeister. Don't drink ANYTHING that has this in it. And certainly don't drink it straight. Don't even touch the bottle. Try to avoid looking at it for too long if you can help it. This stuff is mandrill-puke. It's awful. Trying to capitalize on the success of schnapps, the Germans thought they'd follow the Britons' lead and distill a bunch of plants and herbs together. But they didn't wind up with gin. They wound up with Italian-sausage-flavored mouthwash. 
• more than two fruit juices. Tropical drinks are all well and good, but I'm one of those drinkers who likes to taste the liquor he's ingesting. A lot of drinks cover the booze up with a cornucopia of fruit juices: pineapple, cranberry, grapefruit, orange, grape, or even prune. If it's got more than triple the ratio of fruit juice to liquor, pass it up. Unless we're talking tropical drinks; those are supposed to be like that. 
• grenadine. Watch this stuff. I like it, certainly. It's cherry-flavored syrup, made from pomegranates. It's completely nonalcoholic, and can be used to make cherry Coke or Shirley Temples. But it's not Supreme God of All Mixers. A lot of cocktails I've run across seem to have grenadine in them only for good measure, almost as an oversight. And sometimes (as we've seen with the jillionaire), grenadine just doesn't belong where it's put. Don't drink pink drinks. If your drink comes out pink, and you didn't expect it to, blame the grenadine. I don't think grenadine should go into any drink containing whiskey, brandy, dark rum, or any other dark liquors. Doesn't work as well as you'd think. 
• sweet plus savory. Make sure to match your mixers with your liquors and not cross them. Don't use, say, dry vermouth in a rum drink, or you'll have a distasteful clash of sweet and un-sweet. Gin and vodka are liquors which, to some degree, take on the flavors of whatever you mix them with, so you're okay using whatever kind of vermouth or fruit-flavored liqueur with them. But tequila and rum (especially dark or aged rum) have a distinctive, sweetish essence, and should be mixed with care. A rum martini might look good on paper, but think twice before you try one.

If you want something simpler, here's a rule of thumb my father likes to promulgate. He says:

"If a drink's got more than three ingredients, it's not worth your time."

Pop figures, quite rightly, that a surfeit of ingredients muddles the drink. It's the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none principle. A drink with a bazillion components makes for a miasma of flavors which only obscure one other, or get in each others' way. Moreover they disguise the booze. Drinks should be kept simple and straightforward, Dad reckons. (In case you haven't guessed, he's a martini drinker. An extra-dry double martini drinker.)

That being said, there are some notable exceptions to the three-ingredient rule. Mint juleps, old-fashioneds, and all your tropical drinks (like zombies) are okay.

So now I'd like to give the floor to you, dear reader, and invite you to divulge the most disgusting drink you've ever had. (Those of you who aren't old enough to drink, feel free to stick your two cents in about drinks you may have heard from friends or relatives.) What grossed you out? What was in it? Where'd you have it? What possessed you to try it? What, in your opinion, makes a bad drink?

The decision is ultimately yours. Don't forget that. But please stay away from the Scooby Snacks.