What's In A Name?

What do you do when you open the door to your liquor cabinet and all you can find among the empty bottles with yellow stickies in your handwriting that all say "I'm Sorry" on them? That was our challenge this week. Among the wreckage and 'dead soldiers' we did manage to cobble together some gin and a little bit of absinthe - but surely that wouldn't be useful for our pilgrimage through Old Man Drink-town could it?!

Monkey Gland

Not since the ill-fated experiment with  Harvey Wallbanger has the name of a cocktail so taunted us, dear friends. But when you consider the ingredients I suppose we should have been able to guess what was coming.

They say that W.B. Yeats had monkey glands implanted in his scrotum when he was an old man, to help restore his sexual potency. That revolutionary procedure, which was all the rage in the 1920s, provided the inspiration for this cocktail, first mixed up by Harry MacElhone, owner of Harry's New York Bar in Paris. The Washington Post pronounced it as the smash hit of the 1923 French tourist season, and it was later adjudged to be one of the quintessential cocktails of the Prohibition era. No representations are made or implied regarding this drink's - ahem - rejuvenating - powers, though it is a fact that Yeats got his groove back soon after undergoing the procedure.

"Jeanie is the perfect wife. She cooks, cleans, mends, socializes. One of these days she's gonna melt down, and I hope I'm out of town that day."
- Max, 66, salesman

Well put Max, well put.

2oz gin
1oz orange juice
Dash grenadine
Dash absinthe

If men in the 1920's were relying on surgically-grafted monkey test-i-cles for sexual potency I think the bad rep that the 'little blue pill' gets can just simmer down. I appreciate that for the artists out there you might need something a little off the beaten path, some Valerian root or oysters perchance, but having the balls (pun intended) for undergoing surgery in the days of cholera to stuff a few extra marbles in your skin pouch is way too hardcore for me.

I actually had some lofty expectations for this drink based on the Obituary where the absinthe was able to keep the gin-wretches (commonly called the Gretch's) at bay. And also... orange juice! I love some ice in my OJ and I'm careful not to stab at it with any knives for that would be VERY insensitve. At least not without some gloves and my Bruno Magli's.

White Bronco? Anyone? Al Cowlings?

I digress. As far as the gin drinks goes, I'd put it somewhere at the higher end of the spectrum but that really doesn't say much. There are few positives I can offer for this one - it doesn't even sound cool and your date will likely be running for the exit on her first opportunity when she learns that you'd like to sip of the Monkey Gland. And if she doesn't - YOU should be the one running for the door!! Lets just give this drink 2 gloves that don't fit out of an animatronic monkey that beats cymbals together. Yeah, cause there's nothing creepy about that at all....