December 22nd, 2009
Quite possibly the stupidest drink ever
There are two things drinkboston normally doesn’t talk about: stupid drinks described in press releases and stupid celebrity scandals. I don’t want to call any extra attention to these scourges. And yet, how could I not pipe up about something that came over the transom today?
The local PR firm Image Unlimited Communications sent a press release about a cocktail that Za Za restaurant in Saugus (oh, Saugus) is promoting. Here is a verbatim excerpt (complete with rampant quotation marks, random capitalization and a missing apostrophe).
Who’s fiercer, the cougar or the tiger? Experience them both at Za Za Restaurant off of Route 1 in Saugus, MA. Based on the recent escapades of Tiger Woods, the “Two-Timing Tiger” ($9.50) cocktail is a deceivingly delicious blend of grey goose vodka, olive juice (extra dirty), and 14 blue cheesy stuffed olives in honor of each of the “man of the hours” alleged transgressions. You might have to beat back a few “Cougars” to reach the “Tiger” at Za Za – but stop in and enjoy it.
Ingredients:
3 oz. Grey Goose Vodka
1 oz. Olive Juice
Blue Cheese Stuffed Olives
Directions: Combine Grey Goose Vodka and olive juice in a shaker filled with ice and shake until the shaker is frosted. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with blue cheese stuffed olives. Take a sip and get out on the prowl.
Eww. I need a shower.
It’s not that there isn’t a time and a place for silly drinks. And as cocktail historians know, plenty of drinks were invented to capitalize on seedy current events (hello, Ward Eight). But the Two-Timing Tiger blows these quaint traditions out of the water. It’s a mind-boggling combination of bad concepts and lame jokes in one Big Gulp martini glass:
- Grey Goose vodka (the official drink of tools)
- Extra olive juice (get it? Extra dirty…)
- Blue cheese-stuffed olives. Fourteen of them. (Speared on a golf club-shaped cocktail pick, I hope.)
- A celebrity scandal (a professional athlete slept with 14 skanks? I’m shocked, shocked…)
- Cougars (way to work that Big Cat theme … and insult the very women who are supposedly your customers)
- The use of the phrases “deceivingly delicious” and “blue cheesy stuffed olives” in one sentence.
Every political and cultural movement has a common enemy who is held up as a threat to the movement’s cherished ideals. Liberals have Sarah Palin. Conservatives have Nancy Pelosi. Letterman fans have Jay Leno. And now, cocktail enthusiasts have the Two-Timing Tiger. Rowwwrrr.
Permalink | Filed under Booze in the news, Cocktails, Vodka | Tags: cougars, dirty martinis, PR, Tiger Woods
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:08 pm
That’s not half as tacky as the nastiest-named cocktail I ever drank… the Jon-Benet: Ginger ale, vanilla vodka, and a crushed cherry.
December 22nd, 2009 at 11:36 pm
I’m speechless.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 am
I was going to write a comment until I saw the one above…
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:46 am
Sad things is that you probably can’t even get a Zaza cocktail made there (gin + Dubonnet).
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:53 am
I actually thinks it’s funny….it’s a cocktail not a political statement…have you been to Za Za? Not too far off from the truth!
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:23 pm
What more can you really say — but on a parallel point this post brings up a dilemma I am hitting more and more, now that I am the “Cocktail guy” in my circle — yes this is a bit like being a power forward in Munchkinland, but I digress. What do you say to someone that excitedly tells you about a new cocktail they discovered and then proceeds to describe how it is rimmed in crushed graham crackers, candy canes and is equally good with Sprite or Mountain Dew? Yow — I hope my polite smile doesn’t betray what I am really thinking.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Oh, I hope it does, Jonathan.
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
The Jon-Benet: absolutely revolting to drink something like this. The girl was murdered. Have you zero consience?
December 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
All cocktails are for tools. Drink beer and order shots, you pansies.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:08 pm
Simple. You either say “let’s go for beer and a pizza” or you stop hanging out with tweens.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:16 pm
On the contrary, ebuddha. A real man drinks whatever the hell he wants, and doesn’t give a rat’s ass what other people think his boozing choices say about him. Masculinity isn’t about what’s in your glass, Butch.
December 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Oh, brother. The “real men drink shots and beers” argument rears its head again. Um, ever heard of James Bond? Or are you just being all Modern Drunkard on our ass, ebuddha?
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Let’s just say that grownups (let’s leave the real men/women thing out of this) drink grownup drinks. Is this Tiger stunt a real drink? Nope, it’s a stunt, and I can imagine it would taste like a briny, cheesy mess. These sorts of concoctions aren’t constructed with taste or balance or respect for the ingredients in mind. Bleeech.
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
My favorite drink is iced tea, although Coca-Cola and plain-old water are right behind. Only people with limited vocabulary skills or IQs on the south side of 100 have a need or propensity to equate alcohol with “drink.” What’s wrong with a nice, tall glass of yummy Nestle’s Quik?
December 23rd, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Although I wouldn’t want to drink this overly salty and incredibly fattening concoction (ever look up nutrition info on olives sans cheese?), I do want to know why you have such a major bias against blue cheese stuffed olives. I’ve had one from time to time in a Martini and the experience ranged from unremarkable to quite nice depending on the olive and Martini in question. 14 of them is clearly a bit much even without getting into the Herculean challenge of fitting that many in a glass along with the 4 ounces of sodium-drenched vodka, but let’s not malign the innocent stuffed olives simply because some asshat decided to use them in this particular drink.
December 23rd, 2009 at 5:29 pm
I don’t think anyone really drinks those or even makes them. I took it to be a tongue-in-cheek commentary on the Tiger Woods debacle. I thought the clip of the SNL skit was funny too, though plenty of people got upset by it.
As a frequent listener to Dinner Party Download, where a feature of the show is a cocktail inspired by the week’s current events, I have to say I also don’t think that most of those are really meant to drink. It’s sort of a word geek – meets cocktail lover game, is all.
Purdy funny how worked up everyone gets. Y’all need to just have a drink and chill…
December 23rd, 2009 at 6:13 pm
I imagine I shouldn’t feed dim-bulb trolls like Richard, but a word about equating “drink” with alcohol: it’s a usage in English that dates back a thousand years, and most people with higher-than-room-temperature IQs, even without the benefit of extensive vocabulary skills, can distinguish that denotation from the other major one (a non-alcoholic drink) via context. I suppose I should welcome the entertainment value of a non-drinker injecting dunderheaded linguistic analysis into a cocktail blog, but where exactly do these thick-wits come from?
December 23rd, 2009 at 7:10 pm
What’s wrong with Nestle’s Quik? Well two things: first, it’s made with crap ingredients … what’s “artificial flavor” when it’s at home? Not as bad as Coke (HFCS *will* kill you, and that’s sad, because I really do like a rum & Coke) but there are better alternatives for chocolate milk.
The real problem though is that no matter how much you drink, it’s hard to get a buzz on with Nesquik, never mind falling down inebriated, three sheets to the wind, in the bag, sloshed, hammered, fried to the tonsils, tight, tipsy, sozzled, sauced, tanked, blotto, pickled, or even just plain drunk.
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:28 pm
K: Jones Cola. Tastes better than Coke, and is made with cane sugar. Problem solved.
The bigger issue is getting really hammered on a drink containing caffeine. This is a bad idea because it can make it much more difficult to pass out when that becomes necessary–and if you’re drinking hard, it will certainly become so at some point. The side effect will therefore be to potentially lengthen the agony which you’ve worked so hard to drown in booze. And that just totally defeats the purpose.
December 23rd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
Some place in Saugus, and you’re all offended? I guess you’re the sensitive type. And then you attack the goose? I am unimpressed by this publication.
December 24th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Super-premium vodkas like “the Goose” are for people that can’t tell the difference between diluted ethanol and marketing. It’s a gullibility tax.
December 24th, 2009 at 1:01 am
What MC Slim JB said. I certainly couldn’t have put it better.
December 24th, 2009 at 11:06 am
How about the Michael Jackson? Kahlua, lots of milk and a few cocktail weiners… It’s BAD!
December 24th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Somebody should come up with the “Bar on route 1 in Sauges” cocktail. I suggest The ‘Goose (total asshat vodka), Curacao, a splash of Bud Light, a splash of Mountain Dew, and garnished with ignorance.
December 24th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Besides, it should be called “The Cheetah”
December 24th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
I’m just bothered by the poor spelling and punctuation in the original press release. Image Unlimited Communications? More like Image Uneducated Communications.
As for the “real men”, “Jon Benet is revolting”, and other comments from the ostensibly offended, what’s the big deal? Lighten up.
December 24th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Mark D, I think we can do better. How about the Massachusetts Cougah Cocktail:
1/2 Can Natural Light
4 ounces Rubinoff Vodka
2 ounces artificial cherry “juice”
Build the rocks in a pint glass with a lipstick stain on the side.
Serve with a straw stuffed with a lit Virginia Slim
Garnish with a maraschino cherry… for old time’s sake
December 26th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Thought the TIger Woods drink was bad until I read the first comment. Eeewww.
Happy drinking in 2010. Whatever your drink may be, can’t we all just get along?
December 29th, 2009 at 4:01 am
lighten up, woods deserves some fun poked his way, and no-one’s being forced to order one. h@rk at those people getting sniffy about different vodkas as well when it’s all filth of varying degrees…
December 29th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I don’t see people getting “sniffy” about vodka here, tom, but mocking vodka brand snobbery: that’s the opposite of sniffiness. The point is that any decently-made (i.e., well-filtered) vodka should do the trick, since by definition it is supposed to be inherently flavorless. The derision is aimed at people who spend big on a vodka because they feel some affiliation with a brand whose image has been created with costly advertising and packaging that they, the consumers themselves, have subsidized. It’s a closed feedback loop of exploitation and gullibility. The fact is that many super-premium vodkas are made from the same industrial ethanol produced by Archer Daniels Midland, diluted prior to packaging. If that’s not a sucker’s game, I don’t know what is.
February 1st, 2010 at 3:37 am
“Super-premium vodkas like “the Goose” are for people that can’t tell the difference between diluted ethanol and marketing. It’s a gullibility tax.”
Awesome.
ADM is evil.
July 23rd, 2010 at 7:50 am
I can’t belive it, I adore Tiger . Anyone see the new t-mobile game?