Ingredients

• 1/4  cup sugar
• 1/4  cup water
• 1  cup club soda
• 1  cup unsweetened pomegranate juice
• 1/2  cup vodka
• 3  tablespoons fresh Key lime juice (about 3 limes)
• Crushed ice
• Key lime slices (optional)

Preparation

Combine sugar and 1/4 cup water in a small saucepan; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer 2 minutes or just until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat; cool.

Combine sugar syrup, club soda, pomegranate juice, vodka, and lime juice. Place crushed ice in a martini shaker; add about 3/4 cup pomegranate mixture. Cover and shake. Strain into a glass. Garnish with lime slice, if desired. Repeat procedure with remaining pomegranate mixture.

Serves 4

Calories per cocktail:  153

Source & Image:  cookinglight.com

Written by Lea Barlow • Leave a comment

Name:  BITCH Grenache

Alcohol content:  A flammable 15.5%

Price: $9.99

Description per label:  Bitch 42x

Review:

Last night, I was asked to attend a tasting at a fellow wine enthusiast’s duplex as a favor to lend the event some credibility. The theme was wines of West Virginia and I was the Key Note drinker.  After tasting literally dozens of piss-poor blends, squabbling with my contemporaries about the life span of Riesling and being rogered by the hostess for parking my Austin Healey in the front hedge , I was all too inclined towards total inebriation. As I’ve articulated in the past, I have a proclivity towards the gimmicky labeled libations. When I saw the bottle of BITCH Grenache it reminded me of the disposition of the event’s hostess.  I stole the ten-dollar bottle of aged grape juice and headed for the community porch where I remained for the rest of the evening.

For those not in the know, a Grenache is the less popular, overweight cousin of cabernet and merlot. The wine is best served with dessert or as an aperitif.  I would warn that drinking this varietal on an empty stomach could lead to the same burning sensation one could expect from sipping kerosene. This bitchy blend is a wino’s wet dream loaded to the screw off cap with alcohol.  The ruby-colored varietal boasts a bouquet of smoke with hints of rhubarb and cherry. Notes of citrus and raspberry hit the palette and a fleshy twang of clove surprises on the finish. This is the sort of rocket fuel that can make a simple dessert go from small talk to total loss of decorum after a few large glasses. As a serious professional, I’ve posited that gimmick wines are a fool’s game, but this provocative and aptly named Grenache goes for the grapes and leaves you hung-to-the-O.

On the world-renowned SMS scale (1-10) I rate this Bitch a 6. It drinks like a four but I added two points for style.

Suggested pairings:  Vanilla Bean ice cream, chocolate cake and an Ambien.

Written by Lea Barlow • Leave a comment

Name: Cellar No. 8 Cabernet Sauvignon 2007

Alcohol content: 13.9%

Price: $10.99

Description per label:  Cellar No. 8 wines honor and reflect rich winemaking tradition at Asti… blah, blah, blah a great discovery, which might become your next tradition.

Review: It is a widely known fact that I cellar my cheaper wines in my carriage house.  It is lesser-known that it is there where I sit alone and lament lovers past.  While sampling this red, I was fondly recalling a lurid tryst with a saucy Mexican I met while taking in a donkey show in Tijuana.   But I digress and will now move on to the review and spare you the details of my tawdry relations.  A California Cabernet Sauvignon in this price range is a very demanding deed to pull off. I could pontificate to great lengths about the numerous reasons the feat is as such but let’s keep it simple for the lushes and the little people.

After decanting, this young red boasts a powerful bouquet of pepper and oak with a hint of perspiring hobo. When sipped, it blossoms of cherry, chewy chocolate and cheap tobacco and manages to remain leathery on the backside.  The blend is a decent entertainment wine that is reasonably priced with an ever-efficient alcohol content. In my humble, yet expert opinion, this cab should be served below 58 degrees and in voluminous glasses.  On the SMS scale of 1-10 Cellar No. 8 scores a perfect 5 and makes my recommended list of particularly average wines.

Suggested pairings: Empanadas, enchiladas and a dirty sanchez.

Written by Lea Barlow • Leave a comment

Name:  Coastline Chardonnay

Price:  $8.99

Description per label:  California boasts… Long-winded intro…Our Chardonnay is a full-bodied wine with aromas and flavors of apple and melon layered with vanilla and a hint of oak on the finish.

Review:  Last night, while at a wine review at a fellow sommelier’s villa, I apparently made quite a scene that ‘allegedly’ involved several broken glasses and possibly a soiled Persian rug.  But before my driver, Chauncy, requested or rather demanded we return to the Chateau, I made a valuable discovery. So, here I sit peering through one foggy eye penning this review on my wine stained Mac for you, my friends.

I would refer to this white from Coastline as the anti-Chardonnay.  This is not for the Chardonnay drinker that seeks the taste of heavy oak.  The aroma is sweet, the taste robust and the finish smooth with hints of apple and vanilla.  The blend boasts more fruits than the label mentions and remains sweet on the backside. All in all, I would rate this cheap champ a solid 8 on the SMS scale (1-10).  And for the record, it was Chauncy who urinated in that Ming vase.

Suggested pairings:  Clambake, trout a la rusa, and play-dates after 11 am.

Written by Lea Barlow • Leave a comment