Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: We’re all Suffering

Happy Friday fellow shut-ins. Hopefully the majority of you have the ability to work from from home, or have some time off during this global pandemic. While the bars here may be closed, the liquor stores are not. I’m sure many of you have heard jokes about the “Quarantini” this week right? The martini you drink alone in quarantine?

Yes, exactly

So, despite the joke being overplayed after about 5 minutes, I found a New York Post article and decided to read it. Much to my surprise, it linked to a tweet by a bartender who was telling people what they could make based on their bar ingredients. The bartender in question mentioned a “Suffering Bastard”, which has a base of both gin and bourbon. Intrigued with this dual threat concoction, I went to Google to see what I could find out about it. Hoo boy does this drink have some history behind it.

According to We Are The Mighty, this drink was invented in Cairo in 1941 as a hangover cure for the British army. Due to the war, quality liquor was hard to come by, so hangovers were plenty. The bartender at the Shephard Hotel, Joe Scialom was tasked with coming up with a drink that was boozy enough to get the “desired effect” the soldiers were looking for, but to also cure the hangover from the previous night. So, he invented the Suffering Bastard. By 1942, the army requested gallons upon gallons be sent to the front at El-Alamein. Now the first battle of El-Alamein was a stalemate, but the second battle is what broke the Afrika Korps and halted their advance. Was it the change in leadership to Bernard Montgomery that did it? The overstretched German supply lines? Or, did the Suffering Bastard turn the tide of the war? The world may never know…

Anyway, history lesson over. Let’s mix!

Suffering Bastard

1 oz Bourbon

1 oz.Gin

1 oz Lime, less if using concentrate

2 dashes angostura bitters

Top with ginger ale/beer

Add the bourbon, gin lime juice and angostura to a shaker with ice. Shake and pour directly into a rocks glass. Top with ginger ale/beer

 

The initial impression I get is a bitters aroma on the nose, despite the shaking. I figured the smell would be less pronounced. The first flavor is get is tart, because I forgot to take into account how much stronger lime juice from concentrate is vs. fresh. So I measured out too much lime. Thankfully it did not kill the drink as the ice melted, I was able to add a touch more ginger ale and that helped balance the tart overtones.

Another characteristic this drink has going for it is the fact that it hardly tastes boozy at all. Despite the fact it has gin and bourbon as the base. the lime and bitters really keep the intensity down for better or for worse. This definitely borders on dangerously delicious territory. I am very curious to see how this will help a hangover. Though, if it can defeat Nazis, I’m sure a hangover is no match for its healing powers. I’ll definitely give this cocktail a try the next time that I find myself in the unfortunate position of waking up in the morning praying for the sweet release of death.

Stay healthy everyone.

(Banner image found here)

 

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Sharkbait
Sharkbait has not actually been bitten by a shark, but has told people in bars that he was for free drinks. Married to a Giants fan, he enjoys whisk(e)y, cooking, the Rangers, and the Patriots.
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Brick Meathook

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Brick Meathook

Holy cow, I just called the pizza parlor across the street, on the telephone, and told them to make me a pizza and I will walk over in 15 minutes and take it. Is that wild or what?

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Happy Fucking Friday forced and free will shut-ins.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Gratliff

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

So I take it that’s a thing now? William Shatner needs to record it.

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh
Horatio Cornblower

The town of Darien, CT, which is pretty much the apotheosis of what you would be thinking of if you were thinking “Gee, what does a small town full of rich white assholes in CT look like” has apparently just canceled a drive-thru Covid testing site because the fucking neighbors complained!!

My “cleanse it with fire” campaign has just become much more narrowly targeted.

Horatio Cornblower

Darien is so much worse than both, and that’s saying something.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

They deserve to get pegged; make sure it is HUUUUUGE.

Senor Weaselo

Over Greenwich or Stamford?

Horatio Cornblower

Greenwich isn’t CT; it’s NYC suburb.

Stamford is urban enough that, as Sharkbait says, it can safely ignore everyone but the WWE.

King Hippo

The answer is always fire. Cleansing fire. HOLY fire.

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Horatio Cornblower

Needs moar fiddlin’

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Horatio Cornblower

Was watching this press conference and I thought that Peter Alexander, the NBC reporter, was clearly setting up a line of questions that was designed to provoke Trump rather than getting any real illuminating information and that it was kind of BS, and then Trump was to goddamn dumb to avoid it, walked right over to Provocation Blvd and now I just want everything to be cleansed with fire.

King Hippo

I’m betting it just confuses the shit out of one’s hangover. Anything that tastes like lime works, I know when I make a kale/veggie juice, always include a lime to dominate the flavour profile.

King Hippo

/also Mike Bloomberg quickly proved he was the fuckweasel we imagined all along

//remember, I was always as opposed to him as I was Sanders (did not believe for an instant he’d be a real team player, too authoritarian by nature)

Senor Weaselo

That’s comadreja de mierda to El Bloombito!

Gratliff

So Meijer went from 24 hr to 8 am-10 pm because they couldn’t keep the shelves stocked with 24 hr shopping. I’m pretty sure every vehicle in the county was in the parking lot this morning. Definitely hurting my “wait til midnight because I hate people” strategy I was employing long before the plague began.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Given that bourbon was the drink that created the problem of how hungover I am today, I cannot accept that it could possibly also be the answer.

Horatio Cornblower

Focus on the gin

Dunstan

“Alcohol: the cause of — and solution to — all of life’s problems.” — Homer J. Simpson

Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

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Gratliff

TIL History of the World Part 1 is available for free streaming on archive.org. Looks like we will get to continue the boy’s schooling at home after all.

Don T

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Moose -The End Is Well Nigh

Alright; I laughed.

Horatio Cornblower

Trump manages to stagger through his initial remarks without saying anything too goddamn dumb and then Mike Pompeo gets up and says ‘Chinese virus’ within his first 10 words.

Fuck these people so hard.

blaxabbath

This fucking show has to end. We need politics to go back to being simple, dull, and effective.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

One of the most memorable incidents of Obama’s tenure was having a cop and a professor hug it out after the cop tried to arrest the professor for “breaking into” his own home. One of the most memorable incidents of Trump’s is going to be thousands of people dying of the plague.

Gumbygirl

I know what you mean. Yesterday, I watched a press conference with the mayor of LA, the LA county Board of Supervisors president, and then the Governor. I actually cried because I realized we have grownups here leading the response to this catastrophe. I’d forgotten what that’s like after 3 years of this national shitshow of a government.

Rikki-Tikki-Deadly

Nice that our nation’s top diplomat is doubling down on the racism. It’s a shame, I hadn’t heard his name in a while and I was hoping that he might be dead.

Don T

The drink looks harmless and packs a punch. Oof. I’ll probably break a glass making a third one

BrettFavresColonoscopy

So breakfast cocktail?

Horatio Cornblower

I mean, I could eat.