Unlike the vast majority of college students, alcohol doesn’t hold any allure for me. The brief buzz isn’t worth the assault on my taste buds every time I down a shot or sip a crude combination of juice and vodka. However, easily mingling with strangers and dancing provocatively on tabletops (my recipe for a good time) isn’t possible without at least a few ounces of liquid courage.
If your palate can’t stomach the thought of alcohol, here’s a list of cocktails you can make that are sweet and savory enough to pass the taste-test, yet potent enough to guarantee a good time. So grab your shaker tins, drink up and party on.
Queens Park Swizzle
Ingredients
Instructions
Add sugar cube and simple syrup to a shaker tin. Thoroughly muddle (bartender speak for crush) sugar cube with a pestle or blunt object.
Add mint leaves and press gently on leaves about 3-4 times, enough to release the mint aroma but not the bitter chlorophyll.
Add the rum and a few pieces of crushed ice into the shaker tin. Shake for 6-8 seconds or until tin is cool, then pour into chilled glass.
Top with crushed ice and Angostura bitters. Garnish with a mint sprig (slap it a few times to activate the aroma) and serve with a straw.
Moscow Mule
Ingredients
Instructions
Squeeze lime juice into glass.
Add ice.
Top with ginger beer and add a ginger cube on a toothpick if you’re feeling extra festive.
Penicillin
Ingredients
Instructions
Add all ingredients to shaker tin with ice. Shake well.
Strain into a double rocks (short) glass and add ice.
Garnish with a ginger cube on a toothpick.
Pimm’s Cup
Ingredients
Instructions
Muddle the cucumber, lemon, raspberries and blackberries in a highball (tall) glass.
Add Pimm’s No. 1 and Sprite. Stir gently.
Fill glass with ice and garnish with a half-moon lemon slice and a blackberry.
French 75
Ingredients
Instructions
Add ice, simple syrup, lemon juice and gin to shaker tin. Shake well.
Strain into champagne glass.
Top with champagne.