Sex and the Village

I finished my Sex and the City, Season 1, Disc 1 marathon tonight. Can it be called a marathon if you take a 24 hour timeout? Anyway, in the ladies' honor, I tried a Cosmo. Two Cosmos, actually.

I guess the drink's too recent an invention to be in my bartender's guide, so I had to go looking for recipes on the web. The recipes ranged all over the place, but the basic ingredients (as everyone but me already knew) are vodka, orange liqueur, lime juice, and cranberry juice. One recipe calls for equal parts of everything, which seemed like a lot of lemon juice and cranberry to me. (Am I getting sophisticated after 2 months of drinking cocktails, or what?) At the other extreme is a version with just a dash of cranberry and lime. How can it be a Cosmo if you just get a hint of cranberry?

For try no. 1, I went for equal parts Stoli and Cointreau and half as much Rose's lime juice and cranberry juice. Actually, it was cranberry sauce. I didn't have any juice, but I did have some sauce left from a bag of berries I'd stocked up on at the end of the holidays. It was a little sweet and cinnamony, but it worked. I just used the liquid part, no mushed berries.

Verdict: too much Cointreau. It tasted like an orange cocktail. And it was awfully sweet. So I decided to try again: an ounce and a half Stoli, about half an ounce of Cointreau (maybe Triple Sec would be subtler), a capful of Rose's, and a couple spoonfuls of cranberry sauce juice. Verdict no. 2: better (of course, it was my second drink), but something was a little sharp in the back of my throat, maybe the Rose's. Not bad, but it's Kristin Davis's drink, not mine.