Recipe Day! Apocalypse? Winter Solstice?

Winter Solstice. First day of Winter. Yule. Return of the Light. End of the World. Apocalypse. No matter what you call it or your reason for drinking, we've created some festive cocktails in honor of this auspicious day.

Like most of us, you probably don't really believe the world is ending today. We like to think of it as the Mayans' inability to finish the calendar rather than the signifying of the end of time. Perhaps the project was just more work than the Mayans bargained for.

Here in the Adirondacks, winter officially arrived
at 6:12 a.m. (EST) on December 21, 2012, marking the official shortest day of the year. The sun's highest point of the day is the lowest point it will reach in its cycle. No matter what, your Friday should go faster than usual. Whether you sneak out at lunchtime to enjoy your last (?) drink, or wait until the end of the day, here is what we highly suggest to finish you off:

Apocalypse Now
1 oz. Southern Comfort pepper
2 oz. cinnamon spice kahlua
1 oz. tequila
6 dashes tabasco

Stir or shake. Pour into a vessel and warm in a container of very hot water to approximately 110 degrees (wrist test for all you parents who've heated baby bottles).

For those who remember the drinking game Chug-A-Lug, this day was prophesied on a little square on the game board in 1969. Little did we know that the square declaring, "The world will end tomorrow, chug your drink" held so much truth. We had that game when we were in college in the 1980s (Whatever happened to it?) Good times!

Let's instead focus on the light. A pessimist would call it the longest night of the year. An optimist would see it as a shift toward the lengthening of the day. We are optimists - the day is half-full.

Winter Solstice
1 oz. clementine or orange vodka
1 oz. whipped vodka
3 oz. pomegranate juice
1 oz. orange juice

Shake with ice and strain into cocktail glass. (Tastes like baby aspirin.)

We had originally planned to go out with a bang with a flaming shot, but our legal department 86'd the flaming shot. No matter how prominent the disclaimers, some moron is going to try the shot without extinguishing it first.  If you don't believe that, check out YouTube - search for flaming shots, but flaming "idiots" might yield the same results.

Cheers and Bottoms Up!
Kim & Pam