cocktail review no. 36 - Swirling to the Beat of the Haggis Wings

As I've previously delineated, the Golden Rule of cocktails is this:

More than three ingredients = massive suckage.

There's a corollary which follows:

More than three words in the name of the drink = you're on your own, buster.

Some drinks out there have feckin' weird names. Like so:

• Much Fuss for the Conquering Hero (sweet vermouth, applejack, apricot brandy, pineapple juice, lemon juice, orange bitters)
• Shooing Away the Tribes of the Night (dry vermouth, brandy, triple sec, Ricard, cherry brandy, bitters, cherry, orange slice)
• Evans Rescues the Damsel of Garstang Tower (sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, gin, strawberry liqueur, orange bitters)
• Strong-Armed Chris Returns to the Den (dry vermouth, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur, cherry, white crème de cacao)
• A Night in Old Mandalay (light rum, añejo rum, orange juice, lemon juice, ginger ale, lemon twist)
• The Sacred Mountains of the Pekingese Cloud Gods (dry vermouth, Southern Comfort, orange juice, blue Curaçao)

I have to admit, based on the ingredients, most of these drinks don't tickle my fancy. But every so often, I run into a drink that has such an odd name that I just have to try it. It doesn't even matter what the components are. The drink could be fried horse dung mixed with Komodo dragon spit and I'd still be interested. One evening in Korea, a long, long time ago, I was flipping through The Bartender's Bible on a lonely Friday night, wondering what my evening tipple was going to be. I flipped a page and— SWIRLING TO THE BEAT OF THE HAGGIS WINGS —I knew I'd found my destiny.

• 1½ ounces Scotch
• 1 ounce lemon juice
• ½ ounce triple sec
• 1 teaspoon grenadine
• 1 teaspoon egg white

In a shaker half-filled with ice cubes, combine all the ingredients. Shake well and strain into a cocktail glass.

You remember what I said earlier about egg whites? I was well aware of this cardinal rule before I made this drink. I mixed it up knowing full well what I was about to do to myself. But I didn't care. The phrase "haggis wings" conjured up such a ridiculous and awe-inspiring image in my head that I plunged recklessly forward without any thought to methods or results.

The results wound up being better than expected, but still poor. The mixture of (blended) Scotch and lemon juice is never a bad thing. It's just an unsweetened version of a whiskey sour. The peaty flavor of the whisky and the sourness of the lemon juice are a perfect complement. Triple sec isn't a stretch, either: the semi-sweet orange flavor buoys up the already-considerable citrus presence. Grenadine, however, is pushing it. Now we've got three fruits piling in on each other, and their battle for primacy obscures the Scotch. (I mentioned earlier that three fruit juices was the upper bound, didn't I?) Top this off with the egg white and the drink's transition from a steady glide to a fiery crash is complete. Egg whites make drinks slimy and foamy, ruining consistency. I've never met a drink with an egg in it that I liked. Of all the egg-drinks I have sampled, though, this was the least odious.

Try it if you dare. But don't say you weren't warned.

random travel destinations - Wales

Jeez, I've practically covered the entire U.K. before even doing a tenth of the EU. Oh well, the hell with it. This one's going out to Smithy, who's currently peddling his brand of awesomeness over in the Republic of South Korea, but will soon be whooping it up in Wales. Might as well tell you all what the old lad's in for.

Now, I don't know much about the place, myself. Here's a bullet list of what I do know:

• It's tacked onto the southwest corner of England somewhere.
• It's rather small.
• The spelling of the Welsh language in no way resembles its pronunciation.
• The eminent Terry Jones is from there.
• So is Catherine Zeta-Jones (please tell me you don't need a hyperlink for her).
• And Hugh Griffith, too (you know, the actor who played that Arab guy from Ben-Hur).
• And, truth be told, it's also where we get Mr. Fantastic. Or Horatio Hornblower, depending on what shows you watch.

Abandoning all pretense of assiduous research, here's a list of things I found out from Wikipedia:

• Wales has a population estimated at three million. This means that, if the entire population of Wales was teleported into Los Angeles, they could form their own street gang and still reasonably expect to compete with MS-13.
• The Welsh once had a king named "Llewelyn."
• The word Wales stems from the Germanic word for "foreigner" or "stranger."
• Wales didn't fall into anarchy after the Roman withdrawal in 410 A.D. In fact, a series of "successor states" sprang up and thrived, and battled with other English kingdoms for territorial control. One of these English kingdoms was Mercia, famous for being mentioned in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. ("Where'd you get the coconuts?" "We found them." "FOUND them? In Mercia? The coconut's tropical!")
• In the Welsh devolution referendum of 1979, the majority of the Welsh population voted against a proposal by the U.K.'s Labour government to establish an Assembly of Wales.
• A popular Welsh national symbol is the Red Dragon (Y Ddraig Goch). That means that if the United States and Wales ever had drunk sex and spawned a love child, it'd look something like Quetzalcoatl. A reddish Quetzalcoatl. How cool is that?
• There's a rather neat clock tower by the city hall in Cardiff. This would explain why the British PM is constantly ringing up the First Minister of Wales and saying, "My clock is bigger than yours."
• Wales has its own set of seven wonders.

Pretty neat, huh? Bet you didn't know about the whole "Llewelyn" thing.

Lesson to be learned here? Yes, Wales is actually a country. And it has its own unique culture, history, traditions, language, cuisine, natural attractions, landmarks, and...

...clock tower.

Don't you forget it.