June, 2014 - The Astronaut Wives Club - Old Fashioned

**See previous post (read The Astronaut Wives Club)**

The Drink:

Old Fashioned

2 ounces bourbon or rye whiskey (use something good, but not over-the-top)
1 teaspoon superfine sugar (or 1 sugar cube)
3 dashes of bitters; Angostura is traditional and works well

Drinkability:  3.5
Drunkability:  5
Taxic Diversity:  2
Accessibility:  4
Priority for Conservation:  4

Comments:  "we like bourbon"

From "Wives of Astronauts on Apollo 13" hosted by Fluffy Ruffle

June, 2014 - The Astronauts Wives Club - Dirty (Vodka) Martini

**See previous post (read The Astronauts Wives Club) **

The Drink:

Dirty (Vodka) Martini

2 parts vodka
1 part dry vermouth
splash olive brine

(If you like olives) Drinkability:  2.5
Drunkability:  5
Taxic Diversity:  2
Accessibility:  4
Priority for Conservation:  4

(If you DON'T like olives)
Drinkability: .5
Drunkability: 0
Taxic Diversity: 1
Accessibility: don't care
Priority for Conservation: 0

Comments:  "If you don't like olives, you will not like this drink."

From "Wives of the Astronauts from Apollo 13" hosted by Fluffy Ruffle

June, 2014 - The Astronauts Wives Club - Arnold Palmer

**See previous post (read The Astronauts Wives Club)**

The Drinnk:

Arnold Palmer:

Infuse limoncello with black tea for two hours (one tea bag for each cup of limoncello)

Drinkability:  3.5
Drunkability:  5
Taxic Diversity:  2
Accessibility:  4
Priority for Conservation:  4

Comments:  just tea infused limoncello - but so tasty!

From "Wives of Astronauts on Apollo 13" hosted by Fluffy Ruffle

June, 2014 - The Astronaut Wives Club - Vieux Carre

This month, Fluffy Ruffle drew from a non-fiction book for her source of women:  Lily Koppel's The Astronaut Wives Club.  (It was Friday the 13th, and a full moon, so the wives of the Apollo 13 mission was the focus.  Outside of this book, however, there was not a lot of information to be found about the women.  So, read the book!

The Drink:

Vieux Carre

1/2 teaspoon (0.08 oz) Benedictine
1 dash Peychaud’s Bitters
1 dash Angostura Bitters
3/4 ounce rye whiskey
3/4 ounce cognac
3/4 ounce sweet vermouth

Drinkability: 3
Drunkability: 5
Taxic Diversity:  4
Accessibility:  3

Priority for Conservation:  2

Comments:  "Very similar to a Manhattan ... would probably prefer to just have a good Manhattan."

From "Wives of Astronauts of the Apollo 13 Mission" hosted by Fluffy Ruffle

May, 2014 - Leanan Sidhe - Stiletto

Leanan Sidhe

In Celtic/Irish mythology, the Leanan Sidhe is a fairy spirit who takes on mortal lovers, inspires them to the greatest heights of creativity, and slowly drives them mad and kills them in the process.  The brilliance of Irish poets, in particular, and their short lives, wild temperaments and bouts of madness, are frequently attributed to the Leanan Sidhe.  It is also sometimes supposed that Whiskey does these same things, and that a Leanan Sidhe may be sometimes used as a metaphor for whiskey.  

The Drink:

Stiletto:
1 1/2 tsp amaretto, 
1 1/2 oz  whiskey, 
juice of 1/2 lemon

Drinkability:  3.5
Drunkability:  3
Taxic Diversity:  3
Accessibility:  5
Priority for Conservation:  3

Comments:  n/a

From "Muses" theme hosted by Alabazam

May, 2014 - Kiki de Montparnasse - Atty Cocktail

Kiki de Montparnasse — born Alice Ernestine Prin (2 October 1901 – 29 April 1953)

Nicknamed Queen of Montparnasse, was a French artist's model, nightclub singer, actress, memoirist, and painter. She helped define the liberated culture of Paris in the early 1920s.   She started modeling nude at age 14 and soon became the muse for for many of the Surrealist artists of the 1920s,  including Chaim Soutine, Julian Mandel, Tsuguharu Foujita, Constant Detré, Francis Picabia, Jean Cocteau, Arno Breker, Alexander Calder, Per Krohg, Hermine David, Pablo Gargallo, Mayo, and Tono Salazar, and Man Ray.  A painter in her own right, in 1927 Prin had a sold-out exhibition of her paintings at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps in Paris.  Her drawings and paintings comprise portraits, self-portraits, social activities, fanciful animals, and dreamy landscapes composed in a light, slightly uneven, expressionist style that is a reflection of her easy-going manner and boundless optimism.  Her music hall performances in black hose and garters included crowd-pleasing risqué songs, which were uninhibited, yet inoffensive. Long after her death, Prin remains the embodiment of the outspokenness, audacity, and creativity that marked that period of life in Montparnasse. In 1989, biographers Billy Klüver and Julie Martin called her "one of the century's first truly independent women."

The Drink:

Atty Cocktail:

1 1/2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce dry vermouth
1/2 teaspoon absinthe
1/2 teaspoon crème de violette

Drinkability:  2
Drunkability:  5
Taxic Diversity:  3
Accessibility:  4
Priority for Conservation:  2

Comments:  "This cocktail is prettier than it tastes - is pretty opalescent, however very strong.  Would be improved if it was 1/2 tsp creme de violette, but only 1/4 tsp absinthe - too much anise flavor"

From "Muses" theme hosted by Alabazam

May, 2014 - Sappho - Ransom Note

Sappho –   Loosely 630/612 BC  - 570 BC
Born on the Island of Lesbos, and considered by the Alexandrians one of the 9 lyric poets, little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, has been lost; however, her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments.
Called by Plato “the 10th muse,” only one poem has survived complete:  Fragment 1, the Hymn to Aphrodite.  

The Drink:

Ransom Note:

2 ounces Gin 

3/4 ounce honey syrup

3/4 ounce dry mead

1/4 ounce freshly squeezed lemon juice

Drinkability:  4
Drunkability:  4
Taxic Diversity:  2.4

Accessibility:  2
Priority for Conservation:  5

Comments:  accessibility is low for dry mead.  Yum! 

From "Muses" theme hosted by Alabazam

May 2014 - Gala Dali - Lunatics in the Garden

Gala Dali  - born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova (7 September, 1894 – 10 June 1982)

Usually known simply as Gala, was the wife of, first, Paul Éluard, then Salvador Dalí, and an inspiration for them and many other writers and artists.  In 1912 she met Paul Éluard, they were both seventeen, and in 1916, during World War I she traveled from Russia to Paris to reunite with him; and were married the next year. 

With Éluard, Gala became involved in the Surrealist movement. She was an inspiration for many artists including Éluard, Louis Aragon, Max Ernst and André Breton. In early August 1929, Éluard and Gala visited a young Surrealist painter in Spain, the emerging Salvador Dalí. An affair quickly developed between Gala and Dalí, who was about 10 years younger than she.  After living together since 1929, Dalí and Gala married in a civil ceremony in 1934, and remarried in a Catholic ceremony in 1958.  In the early 1930s, Dalí started to sign his paintings with his and her name as "(i)t is mostly with your blood, Gala, that I paint my pictures".  

The Drink:

Lunatics in the Garden:

1 oz gin

1 oz lime juice

3/4 oz green chartreuse

3/4 oz luxardo maraschino

Dash absinthe

1 egg white

Drinkability:  2
Drunkability:  4
Taxic Diversity:  5

Accessibility:  2.5

Priority for Conservation: 3

Comments:  *egg white cocktail secret: do a "dry" shake w/o ice then shake again with ice.  So it doesn't have a "jiz" consistency.

From "Muses" theme by Alabazam

April, 2014 - Oprah Winfrey -

Oprah Winfrey

She's a media queen, and she reaches an estimated 49 million viewers a week through TV alone.  Oprah Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, in 1954 and lived in poverty while growing up.  Despite a dysfunctional upbringing, Winfrey eventually received a full scholarship to Tennessee State University, where she studied communications and worked at a local radio station on the side.  Winfrey got her big break in Chicago in 1983 when she began hosting a morning talk show.  Within months, The Oprah Winfrey Show replaced Donahue as the highest-rated talk show in Chicago, and from there, her career skyrocketed.  Today, she not only served as supervising producer and host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, taped in Chicago, but Winfrey is also the founder of her own magazine, O, The Oprah Magazine, and women's lifestyle website, Oprah.com.  Oprah's Angel Network has raised more than $70 million and given 10)% of donations to nonprofit organizations worldwide.  Her production company, Harpo Productions Inc., created another daytime hit, Dr. Phil, in 2002.  There's more -- Oprah is the co-founder of Oxygen Media, which operates 24-hour cable television network for women.  She also produces Oprah & Friends on XM Satellite Radio.  Oprah also launched the Oprah Winfrey Network  - OWN - in the second half of 2009 on the Discovery Health Channel (and is now a Starbucks Flavor)

The Drink:

??

Drinkability:  3
Drunkability:  4
Taxic Diversity:  2
Accessibility:  3
Priority for Conservation:  3/4

Comments:  "I think we did not rate the last drink as we went around toasting the good things - it was alright."

From "Women Entrepreneurs" theme hosted by CZ

April, 2014 - Olive Ann Beech - The Aviator

Olive Ann Beech

co-founded Beech Aircraft Corp. in Wichita, Kansas, alongside her husband, Walter, at the height of the Depression in 1932.  Together, the Beeches grew the business from 10 employees to 10,000.  During World War II, she ran the company during the period her husband suffered encephalitis.  Two hundred seventy of their Beech Model 17 Staggerwings were manufactured for the U.S. Army during WWII.  After Walter died suddenly from a heart attack in 1950, Olive Ann became president and CEO of the company.

During her nearly 20 years in charge, she transformed the company into a multimillion-dollar aerospace corporation.  Olive Ann retired in 1968 but continued to serve on the board of directors until 1982.  Beech became the company's first chairman emeritus before dying at home in Wichita in 1993.  In 1980, the U.S. National Aeronautic Association awarded her the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy for her contributions to the aviation industry.  She was inducted into the American National Business Hall of Fame in 1983

The Drink:

The Aviator

1 oz Pomegranate Liqueur
1 oz Bourbon
1 oz Fresh lemon juice
 .5 oz Simple syrup

Drinkability:  4
Drunkability:  4/3.5
Taxic Diversity:  2
Accessibility: 3
Priority for Conservation:  4/5

Comments:  sweet, 

From "Women Entrepreneurs" theme hosted by CZ.

April, 2014 - Madam C.J. Walker - Lion's Tail

Madam C.J. Walker (December 23, 1867 - May 25, 1919)

known as Madam C. J. Walker, was an American entrepreneur and philanthropist, regarded as the first female self-made millionaire in America.  She made her fortune by developing and marketing a successful line of beauty and hair products for black women under the company she founded, Madam C.J. walker Manufacturing Company.

Considered one of the 20th century's most successful women entrepreneurs, Madam C.J. Walker built her empire out of nothing.  Her parents were former slaves, and she was orphaned at the age of 7.  In 1905, she created madam Walker's Wonderful Hair Grower, a scalp conditioning and healing formula.  Walker had a personal connection to the product since she suffered from a scalp ailment that caused her to lose most of her hair.  She eventually expanded her business to Central American and the Caribbean.  By 1917, Walker held one of the first national meetings of businesswomen in Philadelphia, the Madam C.J. Walker Hair Culturists Union of America conventions.  Walker's hard work and perseverance carved a path for women entrepreneurs, the African-American hair-care and cosmetics industry, and the African-American community as a whole.

The Drink:

Lion's Tail:

2 oz bourbon
3/4 oz Allspice Dram
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
1/2 Tbsp simple syrup
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Drinkability:  3/4
Drunkability:  4
Taxic Diversity:  3
Accessibility:  3
Priority for Conservation:  4/5

Comments:  "cloves really dominate at first, P of C split for more of a winter time drink"

From "Women Entrepreneurs" theme hosted by CZ

April, 2014 - Lydia Pinkham - Apple Crisp

Lydia Pinkham (Feb 9, 1819 - May 17, 1883)

was an iconic concocter and shrewd marketer of a commercially successful herbal-alcoholic "women's tonic" meant to relieve menstrual and menopausal pains.

Some would call her the Ann Landers or Dr. Ruth of the 1800s.  In 1875, Lydia Estes Pinkham of Lynn, Massachusetts, converted her herbal home remedies into a big business by skillfully marketing her products towards women and educating them about health issues.  Pinkham's Vegetable Compound became one of the best-known patent medicines of the 19th century.  Pinkhma was deemed a crusader for women's health in an age when women's needs weren't being met by the medical community.  Cooper Laboratories bought the company in 1968, though pills and liquid stamped with Pinkham's name are still available at some drugstores.

The Drink:

Apple Crisp

1 oz Laird's 100 proof apple brand (NOT Applejack)
1/2 oz Cardamom-infused bourbon
2/3 oz fresh lemon juice
3/4 oz honey syrup
club soda

Drinkability:  3
Drunkability:  3
Taxic Diversity:  3
Accessibility:  2
Priority for Conservation:  3/4

Comments:  3/4 split on P of C if it had less club soda

From "Women Entrepreneurs" theme hosted by CZ

April, 2014 - Mary Katherine Goddard - Laughing in the Rain

Mary Katherine Goddard (June 16, 1738 - August 12, 1816)

was an early American publisher and the first American postmistress.  She was the first to print the Declaration of Independence with the names of the signatories.

MKG grew up in New London, Connecticut, before moving to Province, Rhode Island, with her mother in 1762.  Her famous firsts began when she became the first woman publisher in american in 1766.  In 1775, Goddard became the first American woman postmaster in Baltimore, MD.  When on Jan 18, 1777, the Continental Congress moved that the Declaration of Independence be widely distributed, Goddard was one of the first to offer the use of her press.  This was in spite of the risks of being associated with what was considered a treasonable document by the British.  Her copy, the Goddard Broadside, was the first to contain the typeset names of the signatories, including John Hancock.  Goddard was a successful postmaster for 14 years.  In 1789, however, she was removed from the position by Postmaster General Samuel Osgood despite general protest from the Baltimore community.  Osgood asserted that the position required "more traveling ... than a woman could undertake." and appointed a political ally of his to replace her.  On November 12, 1789, over 230 citizens of Baltimore, including more than 200 leading businessmen, presented a petition demanding her reinstatement.  It was, however, unsuccessful.  Following her dismissal, Goddard sold books, stationery, and dry goods.  She died August 12, 1816, still beloved by her community.

The Drink:

Laughing in the Rain:

1/2 oz pear vodka
3/4 oz Lemon Verbena Simple Syrup
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
Champagne to top off (about 1/2 cup)

Drinkability:  4
Drunkability:  2.4/3
Taxic Diversity: 3/4 
Accessibility: 3
Priority for Conservation:  5

Comments:  "3/4 split on taxic diversity for lemon verbena simple syrup being hard to pin down"

From Women Entrepreneurs theme hosted by CZ