The Cherry on Top

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I’m certain you are trying to get everything ready for the holidays. Don’t panic, but add a stop at the liquor store to your list… because I have a present for you!

Nobody would ever call me old-fashioned, but I have developed a crush on Old Fashioneds, and have learned to make them and share them. Now my friends are as excited about them as I am.

img_0394This drink has been around since 1880, and has been credited to a bartender who brought the recipe to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel bar from a private social club in Louisville, Kentucky. I want to share my version with you.  If you like bourbon, and want to indulge yourself and your friends, the Luxardo cherries I use elevate the cocktail to new heights!
I balked when I saw their cost for the first time, but like diamonds and caviar, they cost what they cost – and there is no substitute.

I love to serve them in my sweetie’s leaded crystal rocks glasses, inherited from his Dad. The weight of the glass, their design, the caramel color of the bourbon, and the almost-black Luxardo Cherries, which taste of almonds,  make it a sensory delight. Perfect for celebrating any special occasion!

For each, into a cocktail shaker:
2 oz. smooth bourbon (our fave is a local one, Treaty Oak’s Red Handed)
1/2 oz. fresh simple syrup (equal parts water and sugar)
2 splashes Angostura Bitters,  2 splashes Orange Flower Water (optional).
Shake two or three times, gently, then pour over ice in a rocks glass. Add a slice of orange to the rim.
Retrieve a Luxardo cherry from the jar (allowing some syrup to come along with it, so it may settle onto the drink with it’s cherry)  then decorate your cocktail.

img_0397Hand this beauty to your holiday guests and be prepared for lots of compliments. I wonder how I ever lived without the luxury of these Luxardo cherries? They are heavenly.

Happiest of Holidays to you all!
XO Donna

 

Very Lost in Translation

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imageLast week Facebook posted some photos I had shared three years ago… as their way of showing me they care about me. I don’t believe that for a minute, but I was happy to re-experience the thrill I had the day I took those photos.

For years I had driven past this patch of stone with all of it’s cactus plantings, but the full moon had been the night before, and on this morning every single cactus had a flower! I was so thrilled to witness this miraculous event that I stopped on my way to work to walk among them and photograph them. They even had a soft scent.

Seeing the flower photos again, they brought to mind a delightful comedy, “Cactus Flower,” starring Goldie Hawn and Walter Matthau back in 1969.
And they also reminded me of one of my favorite perfumes then, “Desert Flower.”
Wait, let’s revisit that… it wasn’t called a perfume, it was called a toilet water. And as much as I wanted to be sophisticated about wearing perfume, the name cracked me up. My younger sisters and I would laugh our fool heads off, wondering if they actually used toilet water to make it.

imageTruthfully, I didn’t care what they used to make it, it had every single one of the fragrance notes I loved; jasmine, ylang-ylang, cedar, patchouli, musk, vanilla, sandalwood, and ambergris. And more than that, it was advertised as Modern, Mysterious, Magnetic.  All of the groovy qualities I wanted to embrace as a teenager. I felt delicious and decidedly modern when I wore it!

It’s only now, more than half a lifetime later, that I can see that toilet water was a very poor translation for eau de toilette. “Water for bathing,” not water from the toilet. But, it was a fantastic trip down memory lane. Thank you, FB.

XO Donna