Mixing Without a License

If I had a license to mix drinks, it would probably be revoked after what I just did. Not that I would be likely to get one in the first place, especially once it comes out that I like to mix slivovitz with eggnog (which could also probably get me defrocked for syncretism). But tonight's experiment was really weird, and that's saying a lot, coming from somebody who once ate a sauerkraut-and-jelly sandwich.

Besides slivovitz, I currently have two spirits in my house right now. Well, three, if you count that bottle of wine I am saving for a special occasion. The other two are Kahlua and Jägermeister. In case you don't know, one is a coffee-flavored liqueur - which is to say, not fermented coffee but something more like vodka infused with coffee beans. When you open the bottle, a certain piquant aroma drifts out, redolent of rancid coffee grounds liquefying on a mound of moldy coffee filters. The only way to recover from it is to take a stiff shot of the stuff, preferably mixed with milk or cocoa or something much stronger. Quite a pick-me-up. The other, with a stag's head on the bottle, involves an infusion of aniseseed and some other herbs.

So I thought...gee, what would it be like to pour a shot of one into a shot of the other? Mmm. It was a yummy thought: coffee with a touch of licorice...

Well, the theory was one thing. The reality was something else. I was surprised to find that when you put the two flavors together, and once you get over the spicy tingle on the edge of the Jägermeister's flavor, the combination tastes exactly like...beets.

It was the worst mixed drink I have tasted since my 21st birthday, when I went to a town-gown pub that comped all 21st-birthday-boys their choice of a Kamikaze or another drink I am too polite to mention by name. The Kamikaze turned out to be more or less a shot of raspberry schnapps, which tastes exactly like the cough syrup that used to make me gag when I was a little boy. Whoever invented the Kamikaze ALMOST deserves to be forcefed my latest creation. Which, when it starts turning up at town-gown bars, served free to kids the day they come of legal age to order alcohol, will probably be known as the Seppuku.