First off, I'd like to say, 'Welcome back' to me - for those of you that don't know, I was in the danger zone, and had to take a step back with the wild drinking and eating fests. I took a year off from drinking, lost 65lbs, and I'm ready to try again! hopefully I'll keep myself in check this time around.

Today, I had a snow day from work! Buffalo is currently being blasted by a polar vortex, so no unnecessary time outside! (course, you know I'll probably grill something just for posterity) Check it out though:

I have not had a day off that wasn't planned where I wasn't sick in forever, so I thought I would take the opportunity to get back into this blog aannnnnnnd....  get a little day-drunk.  So - with my first post back in over a year - I present to you:

The Ol' Fashioned Snow Day Cocktail

What makes this cocktail different than a normal old fashioned? Nothing really - I already told you, I'm hanging out getting day drunk because I feel like it. Ok, you know what? I'll beast it up with two little treats that you can try out next time you're messing around.

Treat #1 - Sage 

For this old fashioned, I'm going to incorporate sage into my simple syrup. Sage is a great ingredient to add to almost anything, it's just got a nice rustic flavor that warms you from the inside - just the thing you need when you're locked up in your snowy cabin in the woods (or regular ass home.. like me right now). Plus, sage has a tremendous amount of benefits that you can research in your own time if you want - but let's get real... Most of those benefits will be equalized by the bourbon you're drinking with it.

So for a simple syrup - it's 1 part water to 1 part sugar - so I did a half cup of water and a half cup of raw turbinado sugar, half of an orange (cut the ends off, then cut a generous slice), and a sprig of fresh sage, and a couple pepper corns to keep my pallet guessing. I let it boil until everything looked wilted and dead -

Next thing I did was chill it down, because I'm impatient and didn't feel like waiting for it to chill down in the fridge. This can be achieved real easily by filling a big bowl up with ice water, and straining your syrup into a smaller bowl - then swishing it around. cool that thang down proper in about 2 min.

Once chilled, you gotta transfer that sauce into a fancy small bottle so it looks super awesome. Oh heck yeah scope this out - that's some good flavor right there - you can smell the sage - this should be enough for 4-5 cocktails, which is probably the amount I'll have today.

Building the cocktail 

If you're an alcoholic like me, you know that this is a very simple beverage to put together. Usually I don't muddle fruit into my old fashions, but for today - looking at the rest of my juicy orange on the cutting board, I was feeling it. I dropped a wedge in, and used a muddling tool to bust up the fruit a little bit, and release some of the oils from the peel.

Now it's time for our syrup. I put 1/2 jigger into the glass.

Now it's time for the whiskey - I'm using Bulleit Bourbon, which is hanging out in a custom decanter that my buddy Jason hooked me up with a few years ago - love this thing!

2 full jiggers of that bourbon - and we are in business.

But our Old Fashioned wouldn't be complete without an obnoxiously large ice cube, right? If you don't have a mold for big boi ice cubes, tell alexa to knock that shit off and get one on your doorstep tomorrow. I don't care if it's snowing.

But of course we're not done - I still haven't given you treat #2 yet - I promised you 2, you'll get them. But first - we have to blast this glass up with some orange peel essentials. You have probably seen or done this before, but here's a refresher - get a nice big swatch of orange peel with your peeler (my normal one is in the washer, so I present to you my dollar store peeler:

Next, you want to aggressively squeeze the peel so it folds in half quickly, shooting oils from the peel all over the rim and inside of your glass - if you are a doomsday prepper and happen to have books of matches all over the place, then you can hold a lit match in between the peel and the glass, and get a nice flame. This also intensifies the flavor (I think). After squeezing, wipe the peel around the perimeter of the glass- this just adds to the olfactory experience of the cocktail.  Then drop the peel right on top of the ice cube. Try not to let it fall into the beverage - because again - we're going for an olfactory heightening experience here.

Now it's time for....

Treat #2: Saline

That's right, to totally switch up the initial mouthfeel of this drink and attempt to heighten the sage quality, I'm dropping a pinch of salt into the drink - at the bare minimum, this will help bring out the fruit flavor as well, but you will taste the difference.. Do not go overboard- just a tiny pinch.

And lastly - we add some bitters. Today I'm using this stuff:

I don't know where it came from of if it adds any flavor at all - but I'm using it today.

And there you have it: The Ol' Fashioned Snow Day Cocktail...

Cheers to all of you out there stuck in the snow - use your snow day wisely! Get some drinks in you and do some chores that you've been slacking on!