New Year's Eve Cocktails!

Bad Habit
1 1/2 oz vodka
1/2 oz peach schnapps
cranberry juice

Combine over ice, balancing with cranberry juice.

Out With An Orange Bang
1 1/2 oz vodka (orange if you have it)
1/2 oz triple sec
orange juice

Combine over ice, balancing with OJ. Or shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Resolution
1 1/2 oz bourbon
splash triple sec
sour mix to balance

Combine all ingredients over ice.

Happy Ending
1 1/2 oz Absolut® Mandrin
cranberry juice
club soda

Combine over ice, using equal parts juice and soda

Kiss me and smile for me....

Leaving soon for Indiana...will be in limited internet zone (EEEK!!!!) so will try to keep updated through twitter & facebook. Have a great Christmas!!!!


twitter: www.twitter.com/tikitender

Today's Drink Recipe: Screwball

For my friends at www.meetthephlockers.com, the Screwball.


Screwball
1 oz rum
1 oz Midori® melon liqueur
pineapple juice

Combine with ice in a highball glass, balancing with pineapple juice. Shake and enjoy.

Frosty The Bartender

For My Cold Weather Friends: Hot Christmas Drinks!

As requested by several readers, drinks to warm you up over the holidays!


Hot Chocolate Butternut
1 1/2 oz butterscotch schnapps
1/2 oz amaretto almond liqueur
Hot chocolate

Combine ingredients in a coffee mug. Top with whipped cream, if desired.

Mocha Mint
1 oz Irish cream
1 tbsp chocolate syrup
1 tsp creme de menthe
1 tsp creme de cacao
Hot coffee

Combine in your favorite mug. Top with whipped cream, if desired.

Jen's Creamy Thighs
1 oz amaretto almond liqueur
1 oz Irish cream
hot coffee
whipped cream
Grand Marnier® or Cointreau® orange liqueur, to float

Combine first three ingredients in a coffee mug. Top with whipped cream and float orange liqueur on top.

Hot Buttered Mocha
1 1/2 oz butterscotch schnapps
1 pkg instant hot cocoa
hot coffee

Combine all ingredients in a coffee mug. Top with whipped cream, if desired.

Christmas Cocoa
2 oz Godiva® chocolate liqueur
1 pkg instant hot cocoa
mini marshmallows

Combine Godiva® and mixed hot cocoa in a coffee mug. Top with some mini-marshmallows. Enjoy.

The Offspring-She's Got Issues

One of my twitter friends posted this, what will soon be my next karaoke hit!!!!

As a bonus it features the lovely Zooey Deschanel, from Almost Famous among others.

Tuesday Afternoon Social Club!!

Tuesday Afternoon Social Club will commence at 12:30. First stop, Poor Walt's. Second Stop: Bahama Mama's shop (1:15). Third Stop: Fisherman's Net (1:30)
Fourth Stop: Finn's Upstairs Deck (app.3:00)

Bonus Late Afternoon Stop: White Eagle Lounge 6:30 ( I will be there for a graduation party)

Recent tikitender.com keyword activity

I like to monitor my site traffic pretty close to see where people are coming from, which posts they read, how long they stay etc. The results can be very revealing.

Here are some recent search results (i.e. someone performed a search on google or yahoo and they landed on my site):

Google:


pamatini recipes
search result: #4
landing: http://www.tikitender.com/recipes.html

tipsy turtle drink
search result: #2 & #3
landing: http://www.tikitender.com/2006_05_01_archive.html
http://www.tikitender.com/recipes.html

oklahoma sooner martini recipe
search result: #1
landing: http://www.tikitender.com/recipes.html

dirty snatch
search result: #6
landing page: http://blog.tikitender.com/2008/11/sandees-dirty-snatch-is-famous.html

tiki death punch recipe
search result: #2 & #3
landing: http://blog.tikitender.com/2008/08/todays-drink-recipe-tikis-planters.html
http://blog.tikitender.com/2008/10/death-of-florida-dive-bar.html

larry miller's 5 levels of drinking
search result: #6
landing page: http://blog.tikitender.com/2007/07/larry-miller-5-levels-of-drinking.html

Thanks Bill & Kim!

Two of my customers brought me back a nice little gift from their recent Caribbean cruise. "Don't Stop The Party" Tropical Drink Playing Cards. A cool set of cards with a drink recipe & picture on each one. So watch out if you find yourself seated at my bar and I say "Pick A Card"!!

I will posting a bunch of the recipes tonight at http://www.tikitender.com/recipes.html

Here's a couple for you.

Green Iguana
3/4 oz tequila
3/4 oz Midori® melon liqueur
3 oz sour mix

Combine with ice and shake well. Pour into a highball glass and serve.

Coral Reef
1 1/2 oz vodka
2 oz Malibu® coconut rum
1 tbsp. strawberry preserves

Shake all ingredients with crushed ice. Pour into a chilled wine goblet. Garnish with a fresh strawberry.

Hey Mark! How do you make...

I was drinking in my favorite neighborhood bar last night with my bro Scott and our friend Terri, when I was given a great bartender compliment. I overheard the bartender on duty say "Let me ask Mark, he'll know", then she called out "Hey Mark! How do you make a Bahama Mama?". Always nice to be respected amongst peers.

So I told her and the barely 21 girl who ordered it had two, so I guess the recipe was good. :-)


For the record, here is the recipe I gave her:

Tiki's Bahama Mama
1 1/2 oz coconut rum
3/4 oz light rum
1/2 oz creme de banana
dash of grenadine
pineapple juice
orange juice

In a hurricane or pint glass filled with ice, combine all ingredients using equal parts of pineapple juice and orange juice. Shake and serve with a fruit garnish if you like.



A couple variations that are damn tasty. There will be variety in a drink like this, but the consistent flavor is the coconut and pineapple.


Blended Bahama Mama
1 oz light rum
1 oz dark rum
1/2 oz colada mix
2 oz pineapple juice
1 oz orange juice

Fill a blender one-quarter with ice. Add ingredients. Blend and pour into your favorite tropical glass. Garnish with a pineapple wedge and cherry.

Banana Mama
1 oz light rum
1/2 oz dark rum
1/2 oz banana liqueur
1/2 oz cream of coconut
1 oz strawberries
1 oz pineapple juice

Fill a blender one-quarter with ice. Add ingredients. Blend until smooth and pour into a wine goblet.

Bahama Mama #2
1/2 oz dark rum
1/2 oz coconut rum
1/4 oz Kahlua® coffee liqueur
1/4 oz 151 rum
juice of 1/2 lemon
pineapple juice

In a Collins glass 3/4 filled with ice combine all ingredients and shake until frothy. Garnish with a cherry.

So there ya go, four similar but distinctive recipes!

Brent Burns Newsletter

Reposted from e-mail:

Hey Brent Burns Fans!

Brent’s just back from his swing out west.  Thanks to Pete & Kathy Ferralli and Russ & Tamyra Althof for sponsoring the house concerts in Phoenix and Tucson.  These house concerts are a great opportunity to hear Brent and Brent would love to do more of them.  We’ll talk more about them next month, but here’s rule #1.  A “house” concert doesn’t necessarily have to be at your house!  It can be held at a community center, private room in a restaurant.  It just needs to be a venue suitable for listening!  Thanks to Doug and Sandi Murray and Sam and Elizabeth Rainwater for all their outstanding hospitality to Brent on this trip.  Thanks also to Mark Mulligan for “Mulligan’s IslandFest” in San Carlos, Mexico.  Brent said this was a really fun event.  Keep this in mind for next year, www.markmulligan.net.

Upcoming events:
1) December 4, 7-10PM, Rapscallions, Land O’ Lakes, FL, www.rapscallions.net
2) December 9, 5-9PM – Lulu’s, Songwriters Circle with Burke Ingraffia, Donnie Mills and Lee Yankie.  www.lulusathomeport.com
3) December 31, 7-10PM – Brent Burns Private New Year’s Eve Bash, Gulf Shores Adult Activity Center.  Call for details, 251-948-8863.
4) January 16, 4:30-6PM – Pardi Gras!  Tropical Isle #1, New Orleans, LA.  www.pardi-gras.com
5) February 14, 5-8PM and February 15, 2-5PM – The Thirsty Parrot, Puerto Penasco, Mexico. www.thethirstyparrot.net

There’s still time to order your Brent Burns merchandise for Christmas!  Check out the online ordering page, http://www.brentburns.com/online.htm.  If you haven’t seen them, be sure to check out the new “Livin’ The Life” tee shirts!

Here’s one other thing to think about as we head into the New Year.  How about joining Brent for the first ever “Going Ugly Early” cruise?  This is in the VERY early planning stages, but let me know what you think, sandspur@gulftel.com!  We’re looking at a short cruise around October 15, 2009.

Brent and I wish you the happiest of holidays!  Thank you for your continued support.  As Brent says, “That keeps my dream alive.”

Happy Holidays!  Keep livin’ the life!
Sharon

a "new" phone

I inherited a MotoSlvr L7 from the lost and found at work last night. Fooling around a little with it. Seems to be geared toward the music player side, but seems pretty good. Plus it has a camera, which I didn't even consider as part of a phone until my short love affair with my blackberry curve. As the name implies it is very thin, which i guess is good LOL. I had the very first Nextel model way back in the day that felt like a brick hanging from my belt so anything is an improvement.

I am realizing that the old samsung "sync" did alot of things really well. I prefer "candy bar style" to flip phones, but other than that I was very satisfied with the phone in general, but the camera stopped working. Of course my uninsured Blackberry Curve was outstanding, with a kick ass flash camera. But my wet fingers shorted the keyboard. I will have another, but until then am playing around with this Slvr.

If anyone has any tips, drop me a line at mwoods27@yahoo.com

Of course there is always a chance that your number was lost in the switch, so update me if you desire.

Boys & Girls Clubs To Close Doors

Front page news today in Newsweek and it makes me sad. Sad because when government spending gets cut, the first thing that seems to go is children's services, education, then health care assistance. The last thing to go is prisons and defense. Of course this is just as i see it through my eyes. The eyes of someone who spent 3 years working in Juvenile Corrections in the early to mid 90's. Working with kids born in 1980-1984, the beginning of "Greed Is Good" and DINKS. Kids that were born into the heydey of cocaine in the boardroom and crack in the classroom. We used to call the time between 3pm and 6pm the "critical hours" because that was when the kids were getting into trouble. We turned it around a little in the 90's though.

Now our backwards priorities are at it again. Bailouts to wall street, billions on the war in Iraq, yet we can't provide a little funding for Boys & Girls clubs.

Read the Newsweek article here http://www.newsweek.com/id/173894

Model Bettie Page Dies in Los Angeles at 85

Bettie Page

LOS ANGELES — Bettie Page, the 1950s secretary-turned-model whose controversial photographs in skimpy attire or none at all helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution, died Thursday. She was 85.

Page was placed on life support last week after suffering a heart attack in Los Angeles and never regained consciousness, said her agent, Mark Roesler. He said he and Page's family agreed to remove life support. Before the heart attack, Page had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia....

Read entire article here http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,465846,00.html

Some Holiday Drink Suggestions

Christmas Parties are coming!!! For your party, or just a night out on the town, try these festive cocktails!!

Caribbean Christmas
1 oz rum
1/2 oz coconut-flavored rum
2 oz pineapple juice
2 oz cranberry juice
Shake well with ice and strain into an iced highball glass. Garnish with tropical fruits.

Red Nose Cocktail
1 1/2 oz light rum
1/2 oz grenadine
1/2 oz fresh lemon juice
cranberry juice
Shake rum, grenadine, and lemon juice with cracked ice and strain into an iced highball glass. Fill with cranberry juice, and a splash of club soda if desired. Garnish with a skewer of cranberries.

Mele Kalikimaka
2 oz gin
1/2 oz triple sec
1/2 oz pineapple juice

Stir with cracked ice ans strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a pineapple chunk, a little paper parasol, and ride the trade winds to happy hula-days!!

Teatime Love Bite

Thanks to Lola for posting this

http://www.loveheylola.com/

"Fifty Years Of Popular Songs Condensed Into Single Sentences"

Read the entire list by Marc Haynes:

The Beatles, "I Want to Hold Your Hand"
I want to do it with you.
---

Marvin Gaye, "Let's Get It On"
I want to do it with you.
---

Patsy Cline, "Crazy"
I want to do it with you so much I'm going fucking nuts.

---

Little Richard, "Good Golly Miss Molly"
I'm doing it with Miss Molly, and she's totally into it.

---

AC/DC, "You Shook Me All Night Long"
We did it yesterday.

Thanks to Andrew Sullivan for posting this!

Celebrate Repeal Day Today!!

TOP 5 REASONS WE ARE GLAD PROHIBITION WAS REPEALED:

1. Fuller dance floors at wedding receptions.

2. Alcohol makes you stronger, better looking, more interesting and impervious to criticism.

3. Beer makes it easier to watch the Cubs.

4. Tossing salted peanuts in a glass of beer makes the peanuts dance.

5.Without liquor, we'd never get those funny celebrity mug shots.

*from the Southtown Star, a division of the Chicago Sun-Times



At the stroke of midnight, on January 16th, 1920, America went dry. There wasn't a place in the country (including your own home) where you could legally have even a glass of wine with your dinner without breaking the law. The 18th Amendment, known as the Volstead Act, prohibited the manufacture, sale and possession of alcohol in America. Prohibition lasted for thirteen years.

The idea behind Prohibition was to reduce crime and poverty, and generally improve the quality of life in America-- by making it impossible for people to get their hands on alcohol. But, this so-called "Noble Experiment" was a colossal failure. People drank more than ever during Prohibition, and there were more deaths related to alcohol. No other law in America has been violated so flagrantly—by so many "decent law-abiding" people. Overnight almost everyone in the country became a criminal. Ordinary people hid illegal liquor in hip flasks, false books, and hollowed-out canes. In speakeasies, they drank bootleg liquor out of tea cups--just in case there was a police raid.

Mob-controlled liquor created a booming black market economy. Gangster-owned speakeasies replaced neighborhood saloons—and by 1925 there were over 100,000 speakeasies in New York City alone. Mob bosses opened plush nightclubs with exotic floor shows and the hottest bands. At Small's Paradise in Harlem, waiters danced the Charleston, carrying trays loaded down with cocktails. Popular stars like Fred and Adele Astaire entertained at The Trocadero. And at the Cotton Club, Duke Ellington led the house band as tap dancer Bojangles Robinson and jazz singer Ethel Waters packed the house. Out in rural America, on Midwestern college campuses, kids drank "bathtub gin" and danced to the hot jazz of Bix and the Wolverines in lakeside pavilions.

Over the course of the next thirteen years, support for Prohibition waned as the nation awoke to the widespread problems Prohibition had caused. The number of repeal organizations — many of which were comprised of former Prohibitionists — increased, and in 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran for President on a platform that included the repeal of Prohibition.

On December 5th, 1933, Utah, the final state needed for a three quarters majority, ratified the 21st Amendment, repealing Prohibition and restoring the American right to a celebratory drink.

More about Repeal Day:

http://www.repealday.org/
http://www.dewarsrepealday.com/
http://imbibemagazine.blogspot.com/2008/11/repeal-day-roundup.html
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/food/dishing/2008/12/celebrate_repea.html

I Love Discovering Songs That I Forgot How Much I Like!!

Mona Lisa and Mad Hatters
by Elton John

Listen Here: http://www.foxytunes.com/artist/elton_john#/track/mona_lisa_and_mad_hatters


Now I know, "Spanish harlem" are not just pretty words
to say.
I thought I knew, but now I know that rose trees never grow,
in New York city.

Until you've seen this trash can dream come true,
You stand at the edge, while people run you through.
And I thank the Lord, there's people out there like you,
I thank the Lord there's people out there like you.

While Mona Lisas and mad hatters,
sons of bankers, sons of lawyers,
turn around and say, "good morning" to the night.
For unless they see the sky, but they can't and that is why,
they know not if it's dark out side or light.

This Broadway's got, its got a lot of songs to sing,
if I knew the tunes I might join in.
I go my way alone, grow my own,
my own seeds shall be sown, in New York city.
Subways no way , for a good man to go down,
Rich man can ride, and the hobo he can drown.

And I thank the Lord for the people I have found,
I thank the Lord for the people I have found.

While Mona Lisas and mad hatters,
sons of bankers, sons of lawyers,
turn around and say, "good morning" to the night.
For unless they see the sky, but they can't and that is why,
they know not if it's dark out side or light.

And now I know, "Spanish harlem" are not just pretty words
to say.
I thought I knew, but now I know that rose trees never grow,
in New York city.
Subways no way, for a good man to go down,
Rich man can ride, and the hobo he can drown.

And I thank the Lord for the people I have found,
I thank the Lord for the people I have found.

While Mona Lisas and mad hatters,
sons of bankers, sons of lawyers,
turn around and say, "good morning" to the night.
For unless they see the sky, but they can't and that is why,
they know not if it's dark outside or light,
they know not if it's dark outside or light.

Twitter: What are you doing?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service, that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

http://twitter.com/tikitender