New Year’s Eve is coming up, so I thought I’d reprint this recipe for Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters. Proceed with caution.
So we went online, and found approximately 894,589,760 recipes for it. Trouble was, most of them involved gin, to approximate the Arcturan Mega-gin. Trouble was, I don’t like gin.
But we found this one, and loved it. It has just about everything a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster should have. It looks really alien, like something they’d drink on Star Trek. It’s entertaining and dramatic to put together. And its effects are, in fact, very similar to having your brains smashed in by a slice of lemon wrapped round a large gold brick. It’s one of those sneaky drinks that’s waaaaaay more intoxicating than it tastes: it goes down sweet and easy, you keep tossing them back… and soon you’re putting plastic cocktail monkeys in your hair, and trying on other people’s pants, and telling total strangers how awesome they are and how much you love them.
Ingredients:
Champagne
Vodka
Blue curacao
Sugar cubes
Bitters (we used Angostura)
Ahead of time (you can do this a day or two ahead of time, or whenever you like, really), pre-mix a mixture of:
1/2 blue curacao
1/2 vodka
Also ahead of time (shortly before the party):
Prepare a plate of sugar cubes with one drop of bitters on each cube (this approximates the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger).
As guests arrive:
Fill a champagne flute mostly full of champagne, about one shot short.
Add one shot of the curacao/vodka mixture.
Drop in one embittered sugar cube.
Do these one at a time for each guest: it’s pretty to watch, and the embittered sugar cube goes “fizz fizz fizz” in a very dramatic way when it’s dropped into the champagne/ vodka/ curacao mix.
Drink only with people you trust. And beware the plastic cocktail monkeys.
The recipe I have is from the Zaphod Beeblebrox club in Ottawa.
1/2 oz blue curacao
1/2 oz Jack Daniels
1/2 oz peach schnapps
Fill the rest of the glass with orange juice (it turns a lovely green) and garnish with green cherry. Dry ice is a fun addition.
This has a similar “sneak up on you” property, and for some reason tends to anesthetize your face. Also, one friend who got pasted on them reported no hangover at all, which was odd since they were prone to such things.
Whooooeeeee! I’m getting tipsy just reading the ingredient list.
That sounds positively awesome!
I’d probably like the sound of this version more if I didn’t hate Champagne (the drink, not the region of France, which I assume is quite nice).
A plastic cocktail monkey tried to kill my sister. No, really. She’s diabetic, with, at that time, poor sugar control and she stepped on one and it bit her. She didn’t quite lose her foot to the subsequent infection.
True story.
Both recipes above sound good. If I wanted to get real creative, and if there were only a few people coming, I’d get the big sugar cubes and carve them into the shape of a tooth before adding the bitters. For verisimilitude.
And you know, looking at the “previous” and “next” posts on either side of this one, I realize that humans only survive because we can add a post about Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters between the ugly and the horror.
Granny Weatherwax says seeing things no human should have to see makes us human. I’d add that tossing the tooth of an Algolian Suntiger into a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is one of the things that makes is possible to stand being human.
This post came with one of the best directed ads I’ve ever seen on FtB – “Eastwood Speed Blast”. It’s a small gravity feed sandblaster, not a Clint Eastwood revolving blaster.
And I learned something new! I have never before heard of plastic cocktail monkeys (I don’t get out much – especially to cocktail dispensaries).
I makes me sad, though, to see gin maligned. Unless you strictly mean ordinary gin. Bombay Sapphire, on the other hand… I’ve been fighting the urge to buy a bottle for about the past 3 weeks. Like O.F.o’F.W.W., I can resist anything but temptation.
I suppose it would be unwise to serve Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters at the same affair as Haschich (sic) Fudge “(which anyone could whip up on a rainy day)” though “two pieces are quite sufficient”. (see the “Recipes from Friends” section of The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book.)
I never could stand gin. Then my British daughter-in-law more or less forced a gin and tonic made with Sapphire on me. It’s been my favorite drink for hot weather since (rum and coke for cold weather–which lasts about two weeks here in South Texas).
I used your recipe for a party a couple months ago and it was a big hit. It’s very easy to drink 1, 2, or more of them in an evening.
My partner and I brought in the new year with PGGBs – you’re right, they are impressive looking! We toasted you and the other “FTBullies”, and then I beat him at Scrabble. It was a good evening.
Happy new year Greta. I hope 2013 brings you less sorrow and more awesomeness.