WORST BLOGGER EVER

Is probably me. I could go into all of the things that made me stop posting, such as Nanowrimo and graduate school applications, but none of that is particularly interesting.

Here, however, is the stuff that is cool.

I had a really great Christmas this year, my family came over and we had a nice big dinner of roast beef and other good things. I discovered how amazingly delicious proper Pacific salmon roe is. I do not recall the wine we had with dinner, except that it was delicious and had a horse on the bottle. After having my one allotted glass of the fabulous horse wine, (we didn't have a kids table to stick me at so I had to drink the kids wine instead. So I don't get uppity, you see) I stuck with our typical house red, a pretty tasty Chilean cabernet sauvignon.

I was given a nice bottle of French sparkling wine (not champagne since it didn't come from Champagne) by the restaurant, which we drank while opening presents. The fizz of sparkling wine makes it totally impossible for me to glean any actual flavors other than green apple. In booze related gifts: my sister got me a big glass vodka infuser with a little recipe book. Hooray! I'm going to make another batch of vanilla espresso in it. In non-booze related gifts, I received Settlers of Catan (best board game EVER) and a bunch of badass ski accessories. The Boyfriend gave me a kindle. He is awesome.

My presents to others were pretty much just booze and cookies. I made four Christmas Infusions: Quarante Quatre (44 coffee beans in an orange left for 44 days, which I bastardized by sweetening with orange simple syrup), Vanilla Coffee (my personal favorite. Mix with milk for a crazy delicious latte martini), Apple Cinnamon, and Pomegranate (which I always spell wrong). They all sat for 45 days, but did not have a lot of time to age after sweetening, so if you got some of an infusion by me (and it wasn't the vanilla coffee, which only sat about two weeks and aged plenty) then you should probably let it sit for a while.

And then I went to Puerto Rico.

Oh god, Puerto Rico. I flew down there with Boyfriend, GrogLass, and BeerSnob. It was raining for the first two days, which made for a really awesome and REALLY damp trek to the grocery store a mile away. We acquired two bottles of Castillero del Diablo sparkling wine and a pink cava for new years and for the purpose of mimosas (the classiest breakfast booze). The Diablo wine was dry and apply, with a kind of creepy taste of yeast that is supposedly what you want in good sparkling wine gone flat. GrogLass compared it to drinking bread. The cava was super sweet and gone in pretty much minutes. I love pink wine, even when it tastes kind of like candy.

Boyfriend, being the high roller that he is, bought two bottles of Terrezas de los Andes (I don't speak spanish and probably spelled that wrong), which is his favorite red wine. It is like drinking a bottle of lamb. It has a very peppery smell that I love in Malbecs, and really should be paired with food. Drinking it on its own is still a singular pleasure.

I think he got those bottles almost as an apology for the wine that was left in the house: Undurraga Merlot. It was the thinnest, sourest red I think I've ever had. It did have a kind of neat ginger hint on the nose, but eeeeww. Never again.

After that, it was pretty much rum and tequila. The Bros (who I was tempted to call Patron and Polo, but I won't do that) arrived on the 1st of January, hungover and tired from flying, and I made them a fabulous pina colada by following the directions on the back of the can of coconut milk and adding two rings of pineapple.

It is pretty common knowledge that Bacardi comes from Puerto Rico. This means that, when you go to Luquillo beach, a cheerful, one-armed man at a concessions stand will sell you a Pina Colada that is 3/4 151 for four dollars. It will be the best Pina Colada you will ever drink, because you have just worn yourself out by jumping around in the fabulously blue water (with a viz of like, 10 inches. on a good day. damn tourist beaches) or are simply dry from sunbathing. At one point, GrogLass and I went up to get ourselves cups of rum. I was wearing a secondhand skin (a rashguard, because I get really freakin' cold even in the tropics) and a baseball cap about a size too big for me.

I asked for my pina colada in my best broken spanish: "Pina colada con ron, por favor"
"Sin ron?" One Armed Jimbo looks at me suspiciously.
"No, with rum, please."
He laughed: "You're, like, eleven."

GOD DAMN IT I'M TWENTY TWO NEARLY TWENTY THREE AARGLREAREKEYBOARDMASHING

Still, he pours me a generous helping of rum. GrogLass has no trouble ordering, probably because she's actually wearing a swimsuit and not what looks like hand-me-down boyclothes. She spills a bit of her drink on the counter. One Armed Jimbo cheerfully tops up her cup with 151 again.

Basically what I'm saying is, Puerto Rico is the best place ever.

Our only problem was that in PR, when everyone goes on Holiday, that means the concession stands at the beaches too. So for New Years day and Three Kings, there was no one to sell us rum drink or to cast aspersions on our age. The excellent bar (the Flamboyan, both a tasty place for drinks and a really cool type of tree) was also closed. We were forced, as were all thirsty gringos on the island, to go to the only bar open: The Brass Cactus. Holy hell their bartender knows how to mix a fabulous Margarita. We showed up during happy hour, where drinks were half priced, and I ordered a "Perfect" Margarita. This would be Cuervo 1800, Gran Marnier, Cointreau, and sour mix. It was the best thing ever.

I have had other drinks since then. There's a really nice Malbec in the decanter right now that has all sorts of vanilla and clove in the nose, as well as something steely backing up the bakery flavors. It's really nice, and naturally no one remembers the name of it.

I do plan to post pictures here, but since I can't find the cable for my camera, this is probably not going to happen for a while.

Now that I have typed out THAT disjointed mess, I am going to try to keep to my New Years resolutions: to post as reliably as I did in the beginning. We'll see how THAT works out.