Orders for your first cocktail

Our lives have a lot of firsts: The first time we ever rode a bicycle without training wheels, the first time we ever drove a car, the first this and that and may be the first drink. While we could use training wheels for cycling and a learner's permit to drive the car, the laws on drinking leave no room for education. These laws simply drop us right into the responsibility of alcohol without bothering to take the time to teach us how to actually drink responsibly.

And I took up to this great challenge with great vigor and excitement the day I thought I had become 18 and hence an “adult”. There was no one to help navigate me into the world of alcohol. But it dint seem so difficult either and I started my spiritual journey with a 650 ml “Golden Eagle” beer under the campus water tank with a bum chum, buddy, munching on raw Soya chunks. My first visit to a bar was a couple of years later when I started my training for my accounting degree. And in the last 10 years, I hardly seem to remember, when I graduated from Beer to whiskey, when I moved on with life and accepted rum to be elixir or life, least do I remember my first vodka shot. I wished today that I had chronicled my ordeals with alcohol.

I am right now at a stage in my alcoholic life where cocktails have taken my fancy and I wished that I had always been drinking them. I wished I had ordered a Mojito the first time I visited a bar and not just rum and coke. Alas, no one had told me when I began drinking, about the exotic and delightfully illusionary world of cocktails.

I wish to spread my love for cocktails now. Today, I shall introduce you to this grand world of liquid cuisine and help you choose your first cocktail when you go to the bar next. Let my blog be your training wheels with which you can have extensive experience and then gradually get used to this form of Nirvana.

Here are a few recommendations for trying your first cocktail upon reaching the legal age or knowledge of drinking which ever comes later:

Mojito: Rum based. The most popular “in” cocktail of our times. Originally created in Cuba. Acts as a great thirst quencher. Lime chunks muddled along with mint leaves and sugar and then rum and soda water added.

Cosmopolitan: The famous TV series Sex and the City popularized this one like no one else. The girls in this series are always yakking about their lives in the bars of Manhattan with this drink in their hand. Largely associated as a ladies drink, is vodka based with suttle lime, orange bitters and cranberry flavors. Served in a martini glass, the pink color is a delight to the eyes.

Caprioska: The original version is called Capirinha and is based on Brazilian rum called cachaca. But since that rum is not so widely available, there is an alternative version, which is based on Vodka & rest of the ingredients being the same – lime and sugar. If you observe it’s almost same as Mojito except there are no mint leaves in here.

Margarita: As Mexican as it can get. If you knew that tequila is drank only as shots, here is some surprise. Margarita is the most popular Mexican cocktail. Generally served in a salt rimmed “Margarita “ glass, its is a greatly refreshing drink. Silver Tequila mixed with triple sec (orange liquer) and limejuice. The bartender should not go wrong with this.

Cocktail Nirvana believes in experience and not hangover. Drink responsibly