Margarita made with Partida Elegante tequila. Photo: Winemeup, Flickr.

Alabama-born LeNell Smothers defines herself first and foremost as a bartender, but she's been called many things -- most recently, the proprietress of LeNell's liquor store. She's owned her own whiskey label called Red Hook Rye and been recognized by her home state as an honorary Colonel. Other interests include gin, sin and men.

Is a spirit ever too good to use in a mixed drink? My answer to this question is inspired by Julia Child, who taught us that, when cooking with wine, use a wine you would be happy to drink, not just some cheap plonk.

And just because you are making a margarita doesn't mean you should grab the cheapest rot-gut tequila. I'm not saying that you have to break your family savings to drink well, but I am saying that I feel no guilt when I use a rare spirit in a cocktail.

My man and I recently closed on a cozy little house in La Paz, Mexico. To celebrate, we popped a bottle of Partida Elegante tequila. Priced upwards of $300, this is not an everyday sipper for most of us.

Kuchen batter. Photo: Smitten Kitchen

What's the first thing that comes to mind when you see this picture from Deb at Smitten Kitchen?

We're willing to bet a hundred truffles it's that you want to lick the batter of off that beater. To make it even more tempting (if that's possible), this particular batter was prepared for a plum kuchen -- a sweet, yeasty German cake -- adapted from a recipe featured in Gourmet employing a handful of delicious staples like butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, creamy whole milk yogurt and a swirl of lemon zest.

Sounds good enough to eat ... before it's even cooked, that is.

[Via Smitten Kitchen]

Beer cocktails are especially refreshing during warm weather months. They boast a lower alcohol content than mixed drinks with hard alcohol, and with so many great summer beers available, creating unique concoctions for the season is a breeze.

If you're not up to the heft and tequila of a margarita tomorrow (viva Cinco de Mayo!), consider the Michelada, which has been gaining some traction as a spicy summer alternative to the Bloody Mary. Order it at a bar or mix one up at home but give blah pre-packaged products like Budweiser Chelada a pass; make it yourself and spice it to taste.

Shandys (which generally consist of half pale ale or lager and half lemonade, ginger ale or lemon-lime soda) are a refreshing low alcohol substitute if you're looking to enjoy the sun without immediate inebriation. Using quality ingredients like homemade lemonade and a pale ale with natural citrus notes can produce amazing results.

Ty Fugimura, owner of The Small Bar in Chicago, believes his bar's unique list of six beer cocktails is a major draw. As the Windy City warms up, Fugimura knows "sidewalk sitters want something a little bit lighter," so Small Bar offers a "Beergarita," a twist on the classic tequila drink. In addition to adding white ale, they top it off with Monk's Cafe Flemish Sour Ale and Lindeman's fruity Framboise. Sounds pretty great to us. Got a beer cocktail recipe up your sleeve? Let us know. We're thirsty.

True story: In college, I invented a drink called "The Specialty Drink." The recipe: Shot of rum, shot of vodka, pineapple juice, cranberry juice, splash of orange juice all poured in a pint glass, then fill up whatever space was left with beer. As you might have guessed, I sent many an unsuspecting friend towards the nearest trash can.

Recently however, more discriminating mixologists than myself have been concocting a number of exciting new cocktails utilizing beer as a proper ingredient. Credit increased awareness in the depth of flavors and varieties of beer both domestically and abroad for helping to advance the trend.

This past Friday, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an interesting article discussing recent developments in beer-infused mixed drinks in the Bay Area and beyond, including a couple recipes for readers at home. Try your hand at a "Strange Brew" or "The Great Pumpkin" and let me know how it turns out.

Or maybe you can create the next great beer-accentuated cocktail yourself. Though if your idea of creating a mixed drink is simply tossing everything behind the bar into a pint glass, maybe you best leave true mixology up to the professionals. (A lesson I learned the hard way.) Strangely though, sometimes the pros are a bit unseemly themselves. "Two of our previous bartenders...created [the Strange Brew] in hopes of blowing out one of the kegs for a beer change," a bar manager is quoted as saying in the article. "It was so popular that night that we put it on the menu."

Eh, whatever works.

When it comes to assembling the bar for your holiday party, there's a certain list of basics you must have on hand--vodka, gin, whiskey, cola, tonic, etc. Such a bar will certainly serve to make a decent drink and satisfy most customers, but won't add anything special to the festivities. The easiest--and cheapest--way to add a little magic is with unusual mixers. Here's five that will add a twist to your cocktail menu.

1. Canada Dry Sparkling Green Tea Ginger Ale
It mixes equally well with bourbon, vodka and light rum and works nicely in a punch. The antioxidants listed on the bottle may come in handy when battling the holidays' excesses, but the large amount of sugar won't help with that Christmas waistline.

2. Sence Rose Petal Nectar
If you wish to offer chick drinks that are more Deneuve/Dietrich than Carrie Bradshaw, rose petal nectar can come in handy. Try the elegant American Beauty--not the brandy version, but one made with vanilla vodka, lemon juice and rose petal nectar.

It's important to drink responsibly, so those who have been using diet sodas as mixers to cut calories in drinks might be interested to know the results of a new study. Australian scientists compared the rate of absorption for sugar-sweetened alcoholic drinks to artificially-sweetened drinks (like vodka and coke versus vodka and diet coke, for example). They found that artificial sweeteners led to a higher rate of alcohol absorption by the body, meaning that drinkers felt the effects of the alcohol more quickly and more strongly than those who used sugar-sweetened mixers. Drinkers who had "diet" mixers had a greater concentration  of alcohol in their bloodstream and would feel more drink, even if they had consumed the same amount of alcohol with a sweetened mixer.

Scientists worry about people's health because of this finding. When the mixers used to make drinks are "diet," people tend to drink more because they know that the calorie count is lower. When drinking, it is better to try to keep track of how you're feeling than simply the number of drinks you've had. And if you want to watch calories, try following every drink with a large glass of water. It's calorie free and will probably have you feeling much better in the morning.

 

I've never been a fan of using energy drinks like Red Bull as a mixer. Sure, I've downed a can here and there to stay awake during long drives, but the idea of prolonging the act of drinking a foul beverage by mixing it with something like vodka is beyond me.

While browsing BevNET, a beverage industry trade site, I noticed a few newly reviewed energy drinks that actually seem designed to play second fiddle to alcohol. A line of soft drinks called Jet Set Energy comes in mixer-like flavors including club soda, ginger ale, tonic water and "original." The latter hasn't been reviewed, but the red can leads me to believe it may be similar to a cola. The silhouette makes me think strip club, but the background is all Merry Melodies. Of the three that BevNET did review, the ginger ale got the highest marks.

Another similar line that fared much better with BevNET's reviewers was HiBall Energy. They too have tonic water, club soda and lemon-lime, as well as a berry flavor and an orange flavor. All are clear, unsweetened and chocked full of caffeine, taurine and, as an added bonus, B vitamins.

[Image: BevNET]