August 1997.
I was in a floral print mini skirt and a black leather bomber jacket that smelled of cigarettes and musky perfume (Malibu Musk, to be exact). The jacket matched my favourite combat boots and a scarf in the same print as the skirt held my hair back in a high pony tail in that 1950s-preppy-meets-punk-rock-grunge style that was so popular in the 90’s. A pair of Ray-Bans perched atop my head. I felt so grown up at 17. Continue reading “Cerise Chérie Cocktail” →
Let’s play a little game. Imagine, for a second, that it’s a few days before Christmas. Your significant other has surprised you with tickets to the symphony (or Opera… or John Legend’s Legendary Christmas Tour… you choose!). It’s a bitter cold evening; snow is in the forecast. The wind cuts through your jacket with its icy fingers as you walk with your lover, arm-in-arm, toward the warm lights of the theatre doors. Your partner feels you shiver and presses closer as the doorman throws wide the massive glass doors and you step into a whirlwind of theater-goers; the room is a dizzying and disorienting blur of tuxedo blacks and showy holiday evening gowns. You arrive a little early so your partner takes you by the hand and whisks you through the swirling crowd to the bar at the far end of the lobby where the smell of tobacco and Dior J’adore hangs in the air like the London fog. You are handed a beautifully crafted cocktail menu, curated, you’re told, by none other than the theatre manager himself, who dabbles in the art of mixology on the side. Each drink is designed to chase away winter’s cold and lull you into a state of ultimate contentedness against the symphonic backdrop of the evening’s performance. The only question now is, which one will you choose? Continue reading “7 Winter Cocktails to Drink Now” →
In the world of martinis I like to think of a vodka martini as sort of an entry-level martini. A martini with training wheels. It can be jazzed up or dressed down. Shaken or stirred. It’s easy and fun and fairly forgiving. Then there’s the gin martini. This is the grown-up martini. It’s like a family sedan. Safe and reliable, and you can run it through the car wash when it gets a little “dirty”… Then there is this. The Vesper. This is not for the casual martini drinker. This is a midlife crisis Aston Martin bought on a whim and driven backwards down a hill in Monaco while trying to escape your lover’s enraged husband. It’s not for the faint of heart. Continue reading “The Vesper Martini” →
