Lashings of Cream

I looked at the title of this Mixology Monday (MixMo XXXII - "Guilty Pleasures") and thought “well none of the cocktails I like are really that bad for you”. I'm not a fan of really sugary, sweet drinks, not being one of the army of orange tanned, pink clad girls who say:

“Aye? I dinnae ken whit a Sidecar iz. Ah' like them cocktails though, sweet yins that ye' cannae taste the alcohol in.”

(Translation for non-Scots: “Yes? I don't know what a Sidecar is. However I like cocktails, the sweet ones in which you can't taste the alcohol”)

But a guilty pleasure doesn't have to be sugar fuelled, although I can hardly say I don't have a sweet tooth (I eat brown sugar cubes for goodness sake! - there's a guilty pleasure for you). What will it be? Piles of E numbers? Tubs of fat? Buckets of alcohol? What do I drink that people keep telling me is bad for me?

Nothing really.

I have the view that “if you don't want to get fat then just do more exercise and eat what you want” - food is far too important and should be celebrated. Why eat crap that makes you miserable? My peers and family know my views, I'm pretty outspoken, so they don't warn me of the “bad stuff” I eat or drink - they just want a quiet life.

The main fact is: I don't feel guilty by what I consume. Life's too short.

Of course, it goes without saying: everything in moderation... but things lose some of their pleasure if you have them too much, so as long as you stop when you don't want it any more then it should be self-regulating.

With all that in mind though, I will have to choose a drink and I've come up with a corker:

The White Russian

I discovered the Caucasian, as many others before, from the film The Big Lebowski. Immediately after the film I rushed out and bought some cream.

4 parts Vodka (I have no preference to the type)

2 parts Kaluha

3 parts Cream

Build over ice in a rocks glass

It was great. Not too sweet. Dark. So creamy that it enveloped the cockles of your heart (not just warming them). Enough of an alcohol edge that you didn't gulp it down.

I finished it and.... no I shouldn't have another one. Okay I won't. One's enough...... but.. I've got all of that cream, and I'm not going to use it for anything else, and it's not as if the drink is hugely alcoholic.... okay then... one more.

And that is why I've chosen the White Russian as my guilty pleasure. Most drinks you can make up out of a well stocked cocktail cupboard at any time. If you decide to make a Caucasian... you're going to need cream. And there's no point getting one of the piddly little tubs, they cost almost as much as a pint. If you don't drink it, the cream'll go off. So you might as well just have another one.

I'm not complaining.

{image from www.thedudeiseverywhere.com}