Once upon a time, there were three beautiful, enchanted friends meeting to discuss wonderful plans for upcoming content. During the meeting, one of the friends shared three amazing cocktail hacks, each of them better than the last! The other two girls were so thankful that they burst into song and invited the woodland creatures to come inside and help tidy the house. One of the girls felt so inspired, she decided to write a blog post about the cocktail hacks. And they all lived happily ever after. The End.
Seriously, though. Prepare to have your cocktail game changed. Three times.
Elizabeth and I were meeting at Kara’s house during the week the air conditioner went out at Hurley House. The subject turned to alcohol (as it would, at ten o’clock in the morning), and the next thing we knew, Kara was showing us her favorite simple drink. Namely, pineapple infused vodka.
Elizabeth and I were hooked. “Tell us more!”
“It’s easy,” Kara said. “Take a pineapple, cut it up, cover it with vodka, and let it sit for a few weeks. Strain out the pineapple, and store it in a pretty bottle in your fridge for easy serving.”
There was a sizeable pause at this point where Elizabeth and I both wanted to sample the goods, but neither one of us wanted to be the one to suggest that we drink vodka at 10:30 in the morning in the middle of a work meeting. So, we just stood there until Kara picked up on the nonverbal cues we were throwing around.
“Want to try some?”
The response from me and Elizabeth was perhaps a bit too eager. “YES! YES! YES!”
Then, as if the idea of pineapple-infused vodka wasn’t enough of a life-change for one day, Kara asked, “Want to see my favorite way to shake up a cocktail?”
Again, “YES YES YES!”
“Well, you know how your hand always gets really cold when you use a cocktail shaker, and then you have to mess around with the lid and the strainer? I just use a Yeti with one of the lids that has the mouthpiece that you can slide open or closed. The cup is insulated, so it keeps my hands from getting cold. When the lid is closed it keeps the cocktail inside, but when you slide open the lid it works as a strainer.”
How have we never thought of this????
She takes her home-infused pineapple vodka (amazing), pours it into a Yeti filled with ice (double amazing), and shakes it for a full minute (which creates the greatest little shards of ice and fruity foam in the finished cocktail) all without once suffering from frost bite. Then, as cool and classy as they come, she grabs the world’s cutest champagne coupes and proceeds to serve our ice-cold, fruit-flavored, mid-morning cocktail, straight up in vintage glassware.
Move over, awesome. Kara’s in town.
The vintage champagne coupes were a huge light bulb moment for me, because I love those little glasses, but I never know what to do with them. I drink champagne, but it’s not the kind of thing I pop open on a Tuesday evening. However, a tiny spot of pineapple vodka fits perfectly! I am now on the hunt for the perfect coupes so that I can be just like Kara when I grow up.
The Yeti cup doubling as a cocktail shaker is just genius. Admit it. You’re sad you didn’t think of that first and make a million dollars marketing it as such. I’m not sure I can go back to the old cold messy cocktail shaker ways.
And the pineapple vodka? Done. I went straight away and bought two ridiculously ripe pineapples, cut them up, and covered them with a bottle of Tito’s. I stuck it in the pantry and walked away. (No need to chill the vodka while it infuses. The alcohol keeps all the potential bacteria at bay.) Three weeks later, I filtered it into a pretty bottle and welcomed it home to my fridge where it stays chilled and ready for rounding out a day’s worth of hard work.
These little moments of serendipity, where form and function and learning something new collide are my favorites. And the fact that cocktails were involved didn’t hurt either.
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