No Fooling: Four Drinks with Awful-Sounding Names That Taste Swell

Pull an April Fools' Day joke of the cocktail variety

By Seattle Mag April 1, 2015

cocktailapril-fools

Want to pull a great April Fools’ Day joke – one that’s really great and makes the victim of your joke laugh? Then I suggest the  serving up one of the following drinks.

Each drink has a name that is sure to make him or her want to gag, or at least doubt your sanity. But when that first sip is had, it won’t be hard to realize what a wonderful joke you’ve pulled, because while these drinks sound nuts, they taste really good. All the recipes are from Good Spirits.

Blood and Sand
This may be the best known of the bunch, and goes back to 1922, but it still isn’t what you’d call well known. And the name sounds so icky and itchy that it’s a perfect trick of a drink. It’s traditionally made with Cherry Heering, but I’ve grown to love it subbing in Old Ballard Liquor Co. Cherry Bounce.

Ice cubes

3/4 ounce Scotch

3/4 ounce Cherry Bounce

3/4 ounce sweet vermouth

3/4 ounce freshly squeezed orange juice

Orange slice, for garnish (or orange twist)

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add the Scotch, Cherry Bounce, vermouth, and orange juice. Shake well.

2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with the orange slice.

Monkey Gland
When serving this, you may be reminded from the, um, not-as-appetizing banquet from Indiana Jones and theTemple of Doom, cause it seems to fit that menu. But the recipe goes back even farther than the movie, all the way to the 1920s. And absolutely no monkeys are harmed in the making of this drink.

Ice cubes

1-1/2 ounces gin

1 ounce freshly squeezed orange juice

1/2 ounce absinthe

1/4 ounce grenadine

1. Fill a cocktail shaker halfway full with ice cubes. Add everything. Shake well .

2. Strain through a fine strainer into a cocktail glass.

White Spider
For me, drinking a White Spider is hard enough (being a bit of an arachnophobic). But having a nightmare about a drink with actual spiders? Shudder. If you know someone who is the same, this drink is the ideal one to deal them when you want to pull a little cocktail joking. 

Ice cubes

1-1/2 ounces gin

1 ounce Cointreau

1/2 ounce freshly-squeezed lemon juice

1/2 ounce Simple Syrup

Lemon twist, for garnish

1. Fill a cocktail shaker half way with ice cubes. Add the gin, Cointreau, lemon juice, and simple syrup. Shake well.

2. Strain into a cocktail glass. Twist the twist over the glass and drop it in.

London Fog
London has a gray poetry all its own, not to mention loads of history, culture, and good bars and pubs. But any big city’s fog isn’t something you’d want to condense down into a beverage – it’d be so slimy. This drink is not slimy at all. Strong? Sure. But not slimy.

Cracked ice

2 ounces gin

1/2 ounce Pernod (or absinthe)

1. Add about a cup of cracked ice to a mixing glass or cocktail shaker. Add the gin and Pernod.

2. Stir well (so well that it seems you’re frappe-ing the mix). Pour everything into an Old Fashioned glass.

 

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