Michigan Mai-Tai

Something on a lighter note to usher in the weekend after all this talk of cancer and surgery and the like - Introducing: The Michigan Mai-Tai

The back story:
Our good friends Kate and Will used to travel back to Kate's hometown in Michigan every year to visit parents and siblings. Each time they returned they would present me with a special gift: a six-pack of Vernor's Ginger Ale. At the time, the product was not available to us here in Oregon. This woman would lug six heavy bottles of this delicious golden concoction in her luggage. It was "manna from Michigan" to me.

Upon experimentation with this product, I found that mixing it with a splash of rum accentuated the sweet biting taste of this ginger ale and it quickly became my favorite drink.

Since then the Vernor's marketing conglomerate extended it's product base to the wilds of Oregon and so I can now pick up six-pack cans at the local grocery store. After a while I was introduced to the Cosmopolitan Cocktail which became my new favorite.

As my cocktail science began to diversify, I started making Cosmos out of all kinds of juices; blueberry (pretty good), pomegranate (mediocre), cherry (mmm, no). But mango worked wonderfully well and so my Mango Cosmo became the new family favorite.

Then one day I found myself out of Mango vodka; though I had rum and, of course, the fridge was well stocked with Vernor's. Well, science is all about experimentation, so I poured some rum over ice in a cocktail glass then added a jigger of Mango Nectar, floating Vernor's ginger ale over the top to fill the glass. The result was a lovely gradient of yellow to gold and an exquisitely tropical lilt to the palate. It was like a Mai-Tai but with ginger ale.

I dubbed it the Michigan Mai-Tai in honor of Kate who introduced me to Vernors by graciously lugging her luggage from the mid-west weighted down with bottles of ginger ale.

Half-fill a highball glass with ice. Add:
1 jigger rum
1 jigger Mango nectar
fill with Vernor's ginger ale
Add a "squirt" of grenadine to give it a sunset blush
Drop in a maraschino cherry for good luck.

Mango Cosmo:
Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add:
2 jiggers Mango vodka
1 jigger Triple-Sec
1 jigger sweetened lime juice
1 jigger Mango nectar
Shake well then strain into (very important:) "chilled" martini glasses after coating the rims with a dusting of sugar.

Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of Rum

We have a wonderful Asian pear tree in our back yard; it produces big round green snappy fruit. In the late summer, when the fruit starts falling on the ground, they are so firm that they split open. My wife gets out there with a ladder and begins harvesting. It’s fun to watch her – so she doesn’t get bonked on the head with a ripe pear, she wears her bicycle helmet and harvests the pears with my long handled fish net… quite the picture.

We don’t spray the pears so most of them have worms in the core. No matter, she just cuts them out when she slices the pears. But the fruit that hits the ground starts to ferment and draws fruit flies… lots of them.

As she brings the pears inside, so in come the fruit flies. They are really difficult to get rid of. After the pears are gone, the flies land on the bananas or the banana bread after my wife salvages the blackening bananas. It is now into November and we still had fruit flies hovering around us when we eat dinner or work on the computer. They are almost too small to swat. With our declining depth perception, we clap our hands in the air but they survive our futile attempts to kill them.

The other night I was making Rum and Ginger Ale cocktails. Damn, there was a fruit fly in one of the drinks. Before I made the next round, I noticed one dead fly in the shot glass. I washed out the shot glass and measured another shot… there was yet another dead fruit fly in the shot glass. It must have come from the open bottle of rum.

There was about a half inch of rum at the bottom of the bottle; holding the bottle up to the light there I saw two dead (or drunk) fruit flies in the dregs at the bottom. My wife wanted to know if I was going to use that rum. “Sure,” I said, “I can just filter it with a coffee filter”. I left the open bottle of rum on the counter.

After cocktails I was about to put the lid on the rum when I inspected the bottom of the bottle once again. By now I counted ten fruit flies in the dregs of rum. The rum was clearly attracting the fruit flies. This, I thought, might be an excellent way to rid the house of these tiny pests.

I have had the open bottle of rum out for two days nowl; there must be at least 50 or 60 dead flies in the little rum remaining. While cleaning the dishes after dinner, I noticed three flies hovering over the open neck of the bottle. Soon they landed on the rim and walked down inside. Fascinating to watch.

The house is now free of fruit flies. In case you were wondering; No, I don’t plan on filtering and drinking the remaining rum. It would likely taste too “fruity” anyway.