We’ve been dinking around making tasty cocktails lately at the house and we decided to mix it up a bit by playing with beer. Rather than going with tomato juice and or some sort of other morning, hangover drink, we went dessert…with a bit of a jolt.

First I pulled a double shot of Starbucks Gold Coast from the ol’ Sirena espresso machine … which we’re happy to have back today from a healthy cleaning this morning. A shot of Cupcake Devil’s Food Chocolate Vodka gets added in with a splash of Disaronno to cut a bit of the dark roast from the espresso. Toss it into a cocktail shaker with an ounce of half an half and some ice … shake shake shake.

Bust out your frosty pint glass, my favorite is from my friend Heather over at Schooner Exact Brewery in Seattle’s SODO district, and fill it with the frothy deliciousness from the shaker. Spun loved this on its own, truly it’s delicious. However, if you want some nice dark chocolatey beer in there, I’d recommend floating (pouring it over a spoon against the edge of the glass slowly so it doesn’t just dive to the bottom), specifically Young’s Double Chocolate Stout. So good. It magically looked like Guinness, but was darker, sweeter and super chocolatey. The Cupcake vodka kicked the chocolate up a notch and the Disaronno smoothed it out.

The cocktail is super balanced and all sorts of delicious. Let me know how yours turns out or if there’s anything else you’ve added that makes it better.

Chilling with Spun at a new [to us] bar: The Living Room. Loving the mixologist here. This is a single cube of ice with rye and other brown boozy deliciousness stirred in.

Last October I had an amazing Manhattan … in Manhattan … at a speakeasy named Employees Only. Phenomenal drinks. Perfect steak tartar. Great vibe.

Since then I’ve been searching for something to match. Tonight, I nailed it.

1-1/2 oz Sweet Vermouth … Not dry as there’s a HUGE difference in flavor
1 oz RÄ« rye
1/2 oz Cointreau
2 dashes bitters
Orange garnish

Jostle briefly in a shaker with some ice and voila.

Wintastic

The past couple days I’ve been working in Pioneer² at Hub Seattle. It’s a really great work loft for folks who want some time away from their home offices to collaborate with others. Their spin is that you’ve got to be working on a project that will do good in the world, a nonprofit, or some other positive thing. I’m sure there are other stipulations and I’m greatly understating the good that they do, but you get the gist.

They have a bunch of open desks that you can grab, first come, first served style. Today I got a really great, old, wooden executive desk. Parts of it were stained, others gouged or carved, the whole thing was weathered and worn. It reminds me a lot of the one I’ve had for years, which has followed me from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, where I worked on campus as a kid with my dad who was going to school and acquired said desk, to East Wenatchee where I finished up high school, Tacoma for college and finally Seattle where I’ve cranked out hundreds if not thousands of hours of design and code at it.

The real gift, aside from the walk down memory lane, was the super heavy flask, complete with funnel in the left drawer. I’m not sure if this came with the desk before it came to Hub Seattle, or if I was just squatting at someone’s desk who was having a hard time dealing with making a profitable company who could also do good in the world. Either way, it was a fun find.

The main center drawer had a pin number for a credit card on an original card statement. At this point, I stopped shooting photos and just went back to work, longing for whiskey to fill my empty flask.