Photo courtesy of Chicken Cock Whiskey

Help Chicken Cock Whiskey find all of the stolen bottles.

Anyone who is a fan of Chicken Cock Whiskey will be pretty disappointed to find out that more than 10,000 bottles of the product were stolen off of an 18-wheel tractor-trailer at a truck stop in Florence, South Carolina, as it was headed from that state to Glazer's in San Antonio last weekend.

Matti Anttila, owner and president of Chicken Cock Whiskey, is calling on the public to assist in this investigation. Whoever provides information leading to the return of the stolen trailer of Chicken Cock Whiskey will receive a $10,000 reward. They are pretty serious about getting their whiskey back.

"It's a big order and so we would like to get it back, and we thought this would hopefully help in creating awareness," Anttila says.

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There's nothing quite as refreshing in summer as a tall, icy Arnold Palmer. So popular is this hybrid beverage (ice tea and lemonade, with some debate as to the exact proportions) that many supermarkets now offer their own premixed varieties. I prefer, however, to mix my own Arnold Palmer at home and while the classic version is still my favorite, here are five variations that are also satisfying.

Photo by Andrew Miller

Arnold Palmer on the Rocks

5. Peachy Palmer. (Lemonade, Peach Iced Tea). You can brew your own peach iced tea, or if in a time crunch, pick up a bottle of Sweet Leaf. Either way, you'll end up with a sweeter drink that's closer to juice than tea. Perhaps a more appealing and appropriate way to introduce the Palmer family of beverages to younger children.

4. The Tom Arnold. (Lemonade, Iced Tea, Vodka). So named, I guess, because we think of Tom Arnold as a brash boozer and Arnold Palmer as a classy teetotaler? I dunno. A shot of hard alcohol definitely transforms this lunchtime libation into a potential party drink. Plain vodka is a-okay, but a citrus-flavored spirit will smooth out the harsh edge of the alcohol.

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Photo by Joanna O'Leary

I got a bit overzealous with the blue curacao.

I hadn't planned on rushing to the theaters to see Man of Steel , which opens this Friday, but then I saw its featured man candy lead actor Henry Cavill interviewed on Good Morning America. Although I didn't hear anything he was saying because I had forgotten my earbuds, I was still sufficiently and very pleasantly distracted by his face to push through another mile. Thus I concluded two hours of staring at him on the big screen would hardly be a chore. And the movie might be okay, too.

To pregame for this superhero flick, I will be enjoying, appropriately, a Superman Cocktail. There are many different recipes for Superman cocktails and it's unclear whether the Man of Steel himself has endorsed an "official" version. My favorite in terms of taste and appearance is from the whimsical French food blog plumeetfourchette.com. More details after the jump:

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A few years ago, my husband received The Vodka Cookbook and a bottle of Smirnoff for Christmas. He was grateful but a bit bewildered, having never much been interested in drinking vodka let alone incorporating it into his cooking. So it sat on our shelf untouched and eventually I stole the vodka to make mixed drinks for a party.

Recently, however, I have become interested in using spirits in something other than cocktails. And because the sweet, not the savory, is my passion, I have been exploring making cakes, cookies and other desserts with hard alcohol. BakeItWithBooze has proved to be an invaluable source of ideas and recipes, as have numerous Pinterest boards. For my first foray into alcoholic cooking (ahem, cooking with alcohol, not cooking while tipsy), I decided to wander off the beaten baked-good path and try a pudding. I modified (simplified) a recipe found on myrecipes.com:

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Minh T Truong

Yep, there are people in the water.

The third annual Houston Beer Festival happened this past Saturday at Hermann Square Park. In its inaugural year in 2011, the festival was declared a disaster for having oversold tickets on Groupon and run out of beer well before it was scheduled to close and for overall being a big cluster fuck. Most wrote it off, but apparently it came back with a vengence last year. But if you Google search Houston Beer Festival, not much about the one held in 2012 can be found.

This year promised to be even bigger, better and even more organized. And having only the first year to compare it to, I'd have to say it was a success and is a welcome addition to the lineup of festivals in Houston.

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Photo by Joanna O'Leary.

P^3 = Peerless Pear Potion

If I had a nickel every time I craved a pear, I would be a poor, poor woman. Not that I have anything against members of the pyrus genus; my taste buds just seem to gravitate toward tarter fruits like limes, lemons and grapefruits.

Sometimes, however, it's wise to fight your instincts in favor of expanding your palate. Pear is underrepresented in the world of mixed drinks, so when I came upon a recipe using the Anjou variety, I was instantly intrigued. It's officially titled the "Kickstarter Margarita," but I prefer to call this on-the-rocks libation the P^3 ("Peerless Pear Potion") because, frankly, it's the best pear-flavored drink I've had in a long time. (Okay, so it's the only pear-flavored drink I've had in a long time, but it's so good, I don't feel the need to sample any others for a while.) The recipe, after the jump:

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Photo by Joanna O'Leary.

Moscow Mule.

Last Christmas, my ever-thoughtful sister Jackie-O presented me with a set of six Moscow Mule mugs to aid and abet my cocktail adventures. Jackie-O, usually devoted to other varieties of vodka highballs, had herself recently developed a liking for the spicy, slightly citrusy spirit of the Moscow Mule. While she was content to sip her Moscow Mules in any old glass, she thought I probably was more fussy about the barware.

Oh, what a generous assumption. Considering I have been known on more than one occasion to drink wine out of a mug and martinis out of wine glasses, I can hardly claim to be a stickler for matching beverages with their proper containers. But now that I had the copper mugs, I would, by God, use them exclusively for Moscow Mules. And also perhaps juice when I was too lazy to run the dishwasher.

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Photo by Joanna O'Leary.

Texas Teas at Marquis II: They're Large and Will Take Charge of You

In response to last week's paean post on the Long Island Iced Tea, commenter Chris suggested that I check out the Texas Teas proffered at Marquis II. He added:

Report back on the experience, because it's tough not to get wasted starting the night with one of those.

That, sir, is a challenge I must accept.

Although Marquis's famous intensely alcoholic teas are discounted on Tuesday ("Teasday"), I opted to visit with a few friends (also gifted with Irish livers) on a Monday in an attempt to escape some of the crowds.

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Photo from wikipedia commons.

What's colder and more fun than ice? Booze cubes.

Every since my experimentation with the Halloween brain hemorrhage cocktail, I have continued to scheme about concocting beverages that change in character as you drink them. Thus far I've focused my efforts on cocktails that change color, but a few weeks ago, in a tipsy Joycean epiphany, I thought: What about a drink that gradually meted out more alcohol the cocktail that kept on giving ah hah ice cubes made out of booze.

Of course, I'm hardly the first person to have this revelation. Many have mused over the possibility of "ice" cubes made from alcohol as a means of increasingly spiking your beverage and/or changing its flavor profile by tipping the balance with the introduction of another type of liquour.

But anyone who keeps vodka in the freezer knows why simply pouring alcohol into a standard ice tray won't produce booze cubes. The freezing point of ethanol (which varies slightly depending on proof) is way below that of water (0 degrees Celsius) and your average Frigidaire doesn't maintain temperatures that low. If, however, there's anything I've learned from the interwebs, when there's a will, there's a way.

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Photo from wikipedia commons.

The Long Island Iced Tea

I have many fond memories of Long Island, home to one of my favorite branches of the O'Leary family, including my wonderful cousins Julie and Deirdre. As a child, I was in awe of their sparkling wit and giggled constantly at their wonderful stories and convincing impressions. If I managed to make them laugh at my jokes, well, that felt very cool indeed.

During one cousins-only lunch, I had them rolling, though I didn't quite know why. We had just ordered drinks (iced teas all around), and my seven-year-old self remarked, "I'm really thirsty. Can't wait for my Long Island iced tea!" [Intense laughter]

I thought I was just being cute and clever by describing my drink by its geographical location; only years later did I realize I had unwittingly invoked a hard alcoholic beverage.

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