Ready or Not

Just two days ago I ran an idea by some friends, the good kind, and they responded the way good friends are wont to do:  we love it! 

Well, no wonder.  Who wouldn't want to drink their way through The Bartender's Guide while becoming a vegan and blog about it?  Correction -- who wouldn't want to watch someone else to do it? 

Thing is, eating and drinking are social activities, so like it or not my friends will be coming along for the ride.  However much I relate to the line in George Thorogood's song ("when I drink alone, I prefer to be by myself"), we're in this together. 
 
So, today begins the project, beginning with the Abbey. It's so obviously the right way to start, with all the stars in alignment around it.  It's the first drink in The Guide, but that's not all -- when I went to a web-site to learn about how to become a vegan (I couldn't just DO it, I had to read about it first), there was Paul McCartney's video, his face oh so soulful, him telling me to just stop eating meat. So THAT's how you become a vegan!! Glad I read up on it. I haven't been much of a fan of Paul's since 1963, but I am a fan of Abbey Road, and there you have it.  I can find cosmic justification for anything, anywhere. Stick with me.


Along with the days' other errands, I'll be adding a stop at the local package store for gin and orange bitters. The Abbey contains orange juice, and if I hustle I can sneak it in before noon and call it breakfast!

So that didn't happen.  It didn't actually get mixed until four o'clock, but the motto for this project will be "it's always breakfast somewhere!"  The verdict?  A good English gin (Plymouth), sorry ass Orange Bitters (in a plastic squeeze bottle?), a splash of orange juice, and a marachino cherry made for a perfectly nice cocktail for getting out of the gate.  A side of Pepperidge Farm Mint Milano cookies wasn't the perfect accompaniment (they'd be the Orange Milanos ideally), but it sufficed. 

I've not had a bit of animal product all day -- when do I get to call myself a vegan?  Whoops, forgot about the half and half in the morning coffee.  Damn. The vegan thing is going to be harder than the drinking thing, I'm thinking.

I've got a problem with marachino cherries that I'm going to have to come to terms with (they seem to figure prominently in drinks from a certain era -- mine).  Might as well start wrestling those demons early.  Years ago, beginning when I was about ten, I was the mixologist in our house, and Manhattans were the cocktail of choice.  Mom and Dad would have several Manhattans, and each drink would have its own cherry.  Gradually, they started keeping the same cherry through the cocktail hour, not such a bad idea, but by the time I was in my twenties they'd started putting the cherry back in the jar and re-using it -- night after night, until it became blanched and ragged, at which point they'd start with a fresh one.  The other day my therapist told me that life at my house sounded depressing, and I hadn't even told her the cherry story.  So, for me, it's cherries unlimited, all you want, any time.  Like I said, stick with me.