Cocktails make liquor fun.

After a few shots on a hot day, you get a little tired of just slugging back straight booze. You need something calmer, more meditative. Cocktails. Tasked with mixing some mixers with some party fixers, I improvised with cranberry juice, Kiwi Strawberry Snapple and Skyy vodka. Everything tastes better chilled down and shaken up. The trick is to keep it simple and just go with flavors that you know mix well. Vodka+citrus=good times. Fresh is key too. After mixing it all and pouring the drinks into iced martini glasses, my friends and I thought they tasted OK, but a little flat and a little too sweet because of the Snapple. I said I’d love some fresh lime juice to really give the flavors some “pop,” and they said, we have a lime you pretentious schmuck. I sliced the lime up into wedges and gave each drink a spritz and then rubbed the rim with the lime slice. The result was just fantastic, the acid killed much of that clingy sweet taste and gave the flavor profile a whole new dimension.

Many people get caught up in cocktail recipes and making the “perfect” martini or margarita or whatever. I say, just get a few good ingredients a booze you really like and experiment. Keep the experiments to two shots maximum and you should always come up with a drink that will be new and easy to enjoy. If one of your guests don’t like, you can always add more mixer or just pour them a shot.

So this week, it’s three parts cranberry, one part Kiwi Strawberry Snapple and 1.5 parts vodka.