Blue Hawaiian, Antipasto, and Blue Ocean

Before: World Cup time means tablescape time! I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a soccer-themed tablescape. Channeling my inner Sandra Lee, I bought a bunch of random stuff from the party supply store and threw it all on the table together.  Sandra likes to match her drinks to the tablescape, so I switched from the whiskey plan to blue drinks. What better way to support your team and country than to have color appropriate drinks? USA! USA! So this week was the blue hawaiian and the blue ocean. Both drinks are a combination of vodka (not flavored this time!) and blue curacao. I am a firm believer that all sports watching is improved with a meat/cheese/veggie tray. So I made an antipasto tray.

The blue hawaiian was the first blue drink of the day. The combination of vodka, tequila and blue curacao is stout. This is one of the first really boozy tasting drinks that we've had. It is, however, topped off with tonic water instead of Sprite - a nice change for Sandra. The problem is that she only uses a splash of tonic water. The rest of the drink is all alcohol. I might have thought better of this drink if I had it after one of the really sweet drinks. Sandra is all about the extremes. Either she uses a ton of random mixers to hide the taste of alcohol or she just goes all out and uses almost all alcohol. There is no sense of balance. We had to cut the drink with some more tonic water and some Rose's lime juice. It was better after that change. Not great, but better.

The after drink reactions: 

• I can finally taste the booze!
• It's a pretty color.
• At least it's not something a 16 year old girl would drink.
• I'm not saying I would drink two of these, but one is ok.
• She combined a vodka tonic and a blue margarita. I don't think the world needed that.

 

I'm not sure why you would really have a recipe for an antipasto tray in a cookbook, but it kind of makes sense for Sandra. It's just arranging store-bought things on a tray with absolutely no cooking. Not much to screw up. My mom has made some variation of this for pretty much every televised sporting event ever. She never uses a recipe and it is always good. Ours had ham, pepperoni, salami, capicola, provolone, mozzarella, provolone, and olives. I also added international flags to keep up the World Cup theme. 

You might notice that the blue ocean looks exactly the same as the blue hawaiian. Like I said, they both have vodka and blue curacao. The blue hawaiian trades the tequila for grapefruit juice and the tonic water for simple syrup. Your opinion on the drink will depend on your opinion of grapefruit juice. I like grapefruit juice and I didn't think the drink was that bad. It got better once we added some more grapefruit juice. It smelled really horrible, though. And the drink got much, much worse once it started to warm up. As with most of Sandra's drinks, it's best to drink it fast before it gets warm and you really have a chance to taste the drink.

After drink reactions: 

• There are too many tastes.
• Smells like old cereal.
• Smells like oil and gas.
• Smells worse than the buca-cino.
• Aftertaste tastes like something has gone bad.

All in all, I think blue flavored drinks are only marginally better than blue flavored candy, which I hate. Blue curacao does make for pretty drinks, though. If you think matching your drink to your outfit or decor is important, then blue curacao is a godsend. Next week = whiskey (for real this time).