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Month of Cocktails – #19 Pina Colada

This is my first blender drink. It seems like a lot of hardware just to mix a drink, but the results sure are delicious.

This version uses 12 oz. pina colada mix, 4 oz. rum, and 3 cups of ice all blended into a frothy concoction.

I’m really dropping the ball on this month of cocktails. Interspersed [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #18 Havana Sidecar

A few drinks over the last couple of weeks have really stood out. This is one of them. I was about to go into sugar shock with all the sweet drinks last week, and have discovered I have a real fondness for the sours. Anything with lemon is good to me.

The Havana Sidecar is a [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #17 Stinger

Mmmmm, minty. This one couldn’t be easier. It’s two parts brandy to one part creme de menthe. Shake with ice in a shaker and pour into highball glass, either neat or on the rocks. Garnish with a lemon twist if you desire, but it seems unnecessary. It could be dangerous, it goes down smooth. To [...]

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Take Me to Taco Town!

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Month of Cocktails – #16 Tequila Sunrise

The first drink I ever ordered in bar was a tequila sunrise. I’m not sure why I had it on the brain, but I remember that I was underage and planning on ordering a coca-cola, but when the waitress asked me if I wanted to order a drink I took a chance and blurted out [...]

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Best Burger – Green Iguana

The purpose of this burger search was to be a tie-breaker. Each poll for best burger led to a deadlock, so, as editor, it seemed reasonable that I should try several of the local favorites and serve as a tie-breaker. I have, and I’m going with the Green Iguana burger.

There is, however, a slight caveat. [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #15 Sangria

Is sangria a cocktail? For our purposes, absolutely. JB whipped these up for a little shindig we attended Saturday night. She pulled the following recipe off the internet -

1 Bottle of red wine (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Rioja, Zinfandel, Shiraz)1 Lemon cut into wedges1 Orange cut into wedges2 Tbsp sugar1 Shot brandy2 Cups ginger ale or [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #14 Ultimate Green Iguana Cosmo

On Friday evening we dropped into Green Iguana in Ybor for a cocktail. As we drank anonymouses (anonymi?) walked up and down the street protesting Scientology. Frankly, I’m a lot more concerned about the Moonies.

I drank an Ultimate Green Iguana Cosmo which is Citron, Cointreau, cranberry juice, and lime, garnished with lemon twist. It was [...]

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More Vat Meat

Following up on Laura’s post about PETA’s million dollar offer to the first to create vat-grown meat to their specifications, here’s a Village Voice article about a recent in-vitro meat symposium. (Thanks, JB!)

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Month of Cocktails – #13 Tom Collins

It’s like lemonade with gin!

No time for chit-chat tonight, I’ve got grades to enter and all sorts of end-of-the-semester whatnot.

Except to say – collins glass!? What the Hell is a collins glass? After rummaging around I found this filigreed fancy glass that I think may be a collins glass.

2 oz. gin1 oz. lemon juicea [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #12 Old Fashioned

The Old Fashioned is one of the earliest cocktail recipes. While plenty of stuff has been mixed with spirits to allay the strong flavor, a periodical from 1806 defines cocktail as a mixture of spirits, bitters, water, and sugar.

An Old Fashioned (though not named that in 1806) is bourbon, bitters, water, and sugar.

My recipe called [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #11 Black Russian

Tonight’s drink is the Black Russian, 2 parts vodka to one part Kahlua. It is quite delicious.

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Guadalajara Mexican Restaurant

I recently found myself on west Hillsborough around lunch time and stopped into Guadalajara for lunch. This isn’t the first time I’ve been there, and it probably won’t be the last.

Guadalajara is great for what it is – comfort food. They have everything you’d expect from a Mexican/Tex-Mex restaurant, fajitas, tacos, tostadas, burritos, salsa [...]

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Finally Another Round-up

It’s been a long time since since I’ve taken a spin around the web to see what’s happening with the local food blogs. So, without further ado…

Mal Carne, at his new home over at Culinary Sherpas, is eating a cold spaghetti and meatball sandwich. Er, yum?

***The Mouth lets us know that Evo’s will be giving [...]

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Reading While Eating

It’s not uncommon for me to stop somewhere for lunch while I’m out running errands and to find myself eating alone. One of the things I’ve noticed about eating out in Tampa is the lack of reading material. It seems like in every place I’ve lived most restaurants either have vending machines with the daily [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #10 Gimlet

One of the things that has surprised me during this little excursion into the world of cocktails is the variation in recipes. I thought that the recipe for something as simple as a Gimlet would be pretty uniform. It’s not.

My Schumann’s describes it as 2 oz. gin mixed with 1 3/4 Rose’s lime juice. Coctaildb [...]

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The Italian Chocolate Kiss Martini

Last summer TBT asked their readers for the ultimate specialty drink in the bay area. The winner was the The Italian Chocolate Kiss Martini at Bernini in Ybor City.

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Month of Cocktails – #9 Devil’s Torch

I’ve really got to get to the liquor store to replenish my dwindling supplies. Today I looked at the bare bar and wondered what I could make with vodka, vermouth, and grenadine. It turns out I can make a Devil’s Torch.

The Devil’s Torch is 1 1/2 oz. vodka, 1 1/2 dry vermouth, 3 dashes of [...]

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The Art of the Cocktail

Adam Scott Rote, who is located in Dania Beach, Florida, has done a series of paintings he titled The Art of the Cocktail. He also does very cool ghost-like portraits.

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Month of Cocktails – #8 My Own Concoction, The Jolly Granny

Last night we met a friend at the Copper Top Pub (here’s a link to their MySpace page, check your volume at work) to help him celebrate his birthday. The beer special was $6 pitchers of Flying Dog Tirebite, one of my all-time favorite beers. They have pool tables, a digital jukebox, some big screen [...]

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Weekend Whirlwind – Month of Cocktails – #6 Brazilia, #7 Frenchtini, and the Fly Bar

Before seeing the Seminole Heights documentary last Thursday I made my first visit to the Fly Bar. Surprisingly I was not tempted by their Kobe slider, even though I probably should have tried one for the burger challenge. Instead I noshed on some fish tacos while drinking cocktail number 6.

Laura Reiley recently gave the [...]

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Meta

Oy. Blogger’s eating images again. Someday soon I’m switching this whole shebang over to WordPress. I deeply heart Blogger, but it’s time I had more control over my directories.

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Pane Rustica Burger

Of course I had to try it.

Today was the first chance I had to get over to Pane Rustica to try their burger. Creative Loafing’s Brian Ries recently crowned the Pane Rustica burger as the best in Tampa, with The Kitchen’s burger as a close runner-up.

Served on focaccia rather than the traditional bun, this was [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #5 Manhattan

I suppose I should come out of the closet about this. Regular readers may have already pieced it together from a few hints and comments, but it is time to speak with candor.

I am a reader.

There, I said it. I read.

Not only do I read, but when confronted with a problem or new [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #4 Kamikaze

The kamikaze is often served as a shot, and often made with lime juice, but this version is cocktail size and concocted with lemon juice as the IBA recommends. Of course the IBA recipe also calls for Cointreau, but I used De Kuyper.

1 oz. vodka1 oz. triple sec1 oz. lime/lemon juice

Shake with ice, pour into [...]

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Creative Loafing’s Best Burger

My how the time flies. Has it already been almost two weeks ago?

Brian Ries selects Pane Rustica for the best burger in Tampa.

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Square One Burgers

I actually visited Square One a few weeks ago, but haven’t had time to write about it until now. Is this the best burger in Tampa? They make a pretty damn good burger.

We started off with a side of fries and onion rings. For some odd reason a random server brought us a random [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #3 Monkey Gland

The Monkey Gland is -

2 oz. dry gin 1 oz. orange juice 2 dashes absinthe2 dashes grenadine

The first time I ever heard of a Monkey Gland was yesterday while browsing the Wikipedia entry on mixed drinks. I was debating whether I should go to the store for some OJ for this drink when my brilliant [...]

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Month of Cocktails – #1 Negroni, #2 Martini

A few weeks ago I said, completely in jest, that when I finished my thesis I was going to kick off a month of cocktails. A few days later it occurred to me that a month of cocktails might be a fun thing to blog about. Yesterday it struck me – Holy Crap! A month [...]

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