Vodka

My friend Yvonne and I tested my Bloody Mary oyster shooters and got lightly “toasted” at the same time. We kept draining our shot glasses and after each one we figured we needed one more, just to make sure the seasoning was right. And besides, each shot glass contained dinner (an oyster and a vegetable) and a drink (a spot of vodka), so why stop before our appetites waned? Before we knew it we’d moved from testing to party mode. We laughingly dubbed our oyster concoction a “party in a shot glass,” and the name stuck. One thing is sure: start slurping these and you’ve got a party whether it’s for just the two of you or for a crowd of your best buddies.

The venerable Greyhound is made with vodka or gin and grapefruit juice, and if you salt that hound, you get a Salty Dog. So goes the logic. But logic is dull—or lonely. Vodka craves company. Its pure grain simplicity is receptive to a host of improvements that would wither under gin’s herbaceous glare. And who doesn’t love a peach, with all that it conjures—from climbing fruit trees to sipping Bellinis? And with the right salt—like a springwater fresh Bolivian Rose salt—the vodka and peach open up with a smiling opulence that quells the furor of even the surliest god.

Life is so important. There is something you really need to say. But the high voltage coil of iron-rich Alaea Hawaiian salt rimming the Bloody Mary glass at your finger draws you like an electromagnet. The first sip trips the circuit and sends the electrical charge through your body, electrifying your nervous system, vibrating your body, rebooting the brain stem. The surge of spicy tomato juice, tangy citrus, and vaporizing horseradish courses through you. A nibble at the turgid stalk of celery returns things to rights, but by now you are far away, refreshed, restored, forgetting what it was you wanted to say.

We use the cereal milk ice cream base (the unfrozen ice cream; stop after step 2 in the ice cream recipe) to make white Russians because it stands up to the Kahlúa and vodka better than regular cereal milk does. The liquor in this recipe dulls the cereal milk flavor, so we add freeze-dried corn powder to bring it back. Why Ruskies? Because I have a younger sister from Kazakhstan and a younger brother from Russia, whom my family affectionately called our “little Ruskies” when they were kids. Here’s to Zha-Zha and Dima.

Nothing says brunch like a perfectly spiked Bloody Mary. Bubby’s Bloody Mary is famous for being a cure for hangovers. Mostly, it gives a spicy kick that will help you sweat it out. Using a sixteen-ounce glass leaves you plenty of room for the ice and garnish.

In fall, look for clusters of deep purple berries on elderberry trees growing wild throughout the country. I’ve seen elderberries for a fleeting harvest week at farmers’ markets, but you can buy dried organic elderberries as a substitute. This powerful tonic has worked effectively for me over the last two winters; I take a tablespoon right when I feel a cold coming on, and I keep taking it every few hours until I feel better. It’s very tasty, too!

Summer is unthinkable without watermelon. As children, my sister and I would stand for what seemed like hours on the back steps and eat and eat and eat chilled wedges of homegrown watermelon. The seed-spitting contests were fierce. As we were often barefoot and playing in the dirt, the watermelon juice served as an adhesive for a fine dusting of red Georgia clay. We would get so sticky and messy, we were barred from the house until we’d washed off with the hose. And, if we didn’t do a good job, Meme was more than happy to help. This watermelon salad is decidedly grown-up enough to eat indoors (barring any seed-spitting challenges). Spiking watermelon with vodka is an old trick, but the crème de cassis—a Burgundian liqueur made from black currants—elevates this to the extraordinary.

I wouldn’t dream of visiting the vast Central Market in Florence without my friend Judy Witts, known throughout town as the Divina Cucina. With Judy as my guide, butchers and cheese merchants greet us like given-up-for-lost family members, and everywhere we turn another oversized platter appears, heaped with Tuscan delights: sheep’s-milk pecorino, candied fruits spiced with mustard seeds, fresh raspberries dotted with syrupy balsamic vinegar, and, gulp, juicy tripe sandwiches (which I haven’t built up the courage to try). And because we’re in Italy, it all ends with shots of grappa taken straight from little glass vials, obbligatorio after all that sampling. This sorbetto is adapted from Judy’s recipe. One of her favorite parts is the little chocolate “seeds” it contains. Since watermelons have a lot of water, take the sorbetto out of the freezer long enough ahead of serving to make it scoopable, 5 to 10 minutes. To pass the time, serve shots of grappa, and if there’s any left by serving time, splash some over the sorbetto too.

My friends who live in the countryside were surprised one morning to wake up and see me climbing their walnut tree in my pajamas, swiping the rock-hard, unripe green orbs off the branches. Once I’d picked enough, I climbed down and confessed that I could barely sleep the night before in anticipation of collecting enough of them to make a batch of nocino, an Italian liqueur made from unripe walnuts. It took a while for them to figure out what I was talking about. When I returned a few months later with a tub of Vanilla Ice Cream (page 143) and drizzled inky-brown nocino over each scoop, no one questioned my early-morning motives. If you know someone with a walnut tree, give this liqueur a try. And be sure to give them a bottle as a thank you, so you’ll get invited back to gather more green walnuts the following year.

I often serve small glasses of vin d’orange as a warm-weather aperitif. Anyone who enjoys Lillet is likely to enjoy this fruity and slightly bitter fortified wine. But be careful—it’s quite potent. To stay true to its humble Provencal roots, I use very inexpensive vodka and dry white wine. I’ve even made it with wine from a box—with excellent results!

Although this dessert sounds old-fashioned, the frozen sour cream is a modern-day update. And the fact remains that it’s a wonderful way to use a bounty of ripe summer berries. Such an elegant dessert couldn’t be easier to make—the frozen sour cream, which doesn’t require any cooking, is churned like ice cream while the berries marinate in orange-flavored liqueur, and the two come together in wine glasses for serving.

One late summer weekend, I was visiting a friend who lives in the wilds of Northern California, and I noticed lots of wild blackberry bushes with berries that were so plump and ripe that they were practically falling off the branches. I can never resist free food, so I set out for an afternoon of heavy picking. When I came back, my basket loaded down with fresh berries, my friend casually asked, “Did you see the rattlesnakes?” “Um . . . no, I . . . I didn’t,” I replied. Actually, I was really glad to have missed them. That incident didn’t quite scare me away from picking other types of fruits and berries, but I’ll let others risk their lives for blackberries, which I’ve been happy to plunk down money for ever since that day.

Freezing Bloody Mary mix into ice cubes is a cool idea I picked up when I worked at Modern Spirits Vodka. As the ice cubes melt, their red color “bleeds” into the vodka, creating a dazzling drink that changes with every passing moment. Just know that the first few sips are going to be heavy on the booze since the cold, carmine cubes are just starting to thaw, so be sure to use top-shelf vodka.

My friend Christopher Day is skilled in the art of mixing a proper drink, so I asked him one inebriated evening if he wouldn’t mind making me a cocktail using Sriracha. In what seemed like mere seconds, a beautiful crimson creation appeared in my hand; it was not only delicious, but also packed quite a punch. We chose the seemingly innocuous name La Caridad in homage to a very dear mutual friend who—like the drink—reels you in with a snazzy, sophisticated appearance and blends it with a touch of intriguing spice that keeps bringing you back for more.

This tasty Italian-American invention (you just won’t find it in Italy) looks like it’s a heavy dish, but the vodka kicks in and heats up the back of your throat to cut through the heavy cream. You can buy it in a jar, but because it’s a cinch to make and very yummy, it’s definitely worth taking the few minutes to make it from scratch. I like to serve it with rigatoni or penne.

In Seattle, where I first had a version of this drink, martinis come garnished with a sprig of Douglas fir. Thyme syrup contributes a similar herbaceous zing, and little balls of apple are a whimsical touch. This is a great cocktail.

Gina: When I’m hanging with my girlfriends and we want something strong and sweet, this smooth, sexy cocktail, flavored with chocolate, coffee, and banana, does the trick. A splash of espresso gives us the fuel to stay awake for another round.

Pat: It’s the last chapter of the book, right? Gina: It is. Pat: Our last chance to use barbecue sauce, right? Gina: Did we use it in the dessert chapter? Pat: I don’t think so. Gina: Well, okay, then. Neely’s Barbecue Sauce and your favorite spicy morning libation are a match made in heaven. Using robust vegetable juice like V8 (in place of tomato juice) helps balance out the flavor of the tangy sauce. To make a Virgin Mary, skip the vodka and add an extra squeeze or two of fresh lemon juice.

The dirty little secret about Penne alla Vodka is not the vodka but the hefty amount of heavy cream. Vodka is colorless, odorless, and without much flavor—not really attributes of a superstar ingredient. It’s the combination of cream and tomato sauce that gives this dish its signature flavor. The traditional cream is swapped here for low-fat Greek yogurt.

This drink is a twist on the dirty martini using black olives instead of green. James Bond mastered the mystique of the martini—it is the ultimate sexy drink. The icy vodka, the dryness of the vermouth, and the salty olives make the ultimate ménage à trois.