In my party days, it was always Tequila that made everyone fight. I hate that shit to this day because of it. As soon as the Tequila shots started, I left. I used to drink boilermakers when I was in drinking mode otherwise it was just beer. Now that I'm an old man, I really enjoy the fruity drinks, there is one especially that I like whenever my wife and I go to Carrabbas, but I can't remember the name of it. Starts with a P and has a cinnamon stick in it. Really tasty. I think it is similar to a Mojito
As long as you're buying pasteurized cider and are pouring it into clean bottles, botulism isn't a big concern - the pH of hard cider and beer is too low for botulism to survive. Cooking yeast is going to give some weird flavors to the cider. For a couple bucks, you can buy champagne yeast from your local homebrew store or have it shipped to you, which will work a lot better. With no pressure release, though, you'd better put those bottles near stuff you don't care about. It's only a matter of time until one batch gets a little too much yeast or one of those bottles has a weak spot...
For a few bucks, why not just get yourself a big-ass carboy with an airlock? You can get a 6 gallon plastic carboy for about $30, a glass one for $50, and an airlock is only a couple of bucks. (the airlock lets the air created by the fermentation escape without blowing shit up or exposing the contents to air). Combine that with the champagne yeast that Binary recommended, and you'd have a hell of an enterprise going on for stupidly low cash.
Many ciders have potassium sorbate in them so they don't turn into alcohol after they're bottled (keeps the wild yeast from reproducing). That's why he has to dump way more yeast in than necessary and leave them alone for a month - otherwise you don't need much yeast and you can have it done in a couple weeks. So if you want to go the route of a carboy/decent cider making, you need a yeast starter, and if you want it carbonated, you need to transfer it to a sealed vessel (i.e. bottles) after most of the fermentation has happened to let it carbonate. Or add some sugar after fermentation and transfer (preferable since it reduces the chance of blowing something up). Lots of great guides on brewing hard cider - hard cider is about the easiest thing to brew if you want to start with a store-bought cider, and you can easily do it in a dorm room/small apartment. If dumb 20-year old girls are your target, the 20oz bottles and baking yeast is painless. If you want to nail a higher class of girl, though, putting in a small effort will net you actually quality drinks.
I can't believe I'm agreeing to like this but... St. Germaine, finger of Sprite and a lime. Squeeze your lime, stir and enjoy. Best. Summer. Drink. Ever. I swear to God I'm not gay.
I admit, I like them when made right. I don't usually order them in bars up here because they think for some reason they need to charge a fortune for them because it's an "It" drink. Like mint is hard to grow. It swallows up entire fucking backyards. Fortunetly I've been to Cuba a few times which is where they are from, and they just taste so much better when they have Havana Club rum (my favourite rum) and the bitters (a very mild poison illegal in America) in it. The buzz is outrageous. Another good mixed drink is the wulnut finish classic Harvey Wallbanger. It says "Drinking is not a pleasure for me. It's what I do."
Maybe in Canada, but I've never had a problem getting bitters in any liquor store in the US (I still use it with sparkling water for an upset stomach). Havana Club (a truly superior rum, and dirt cheap) was a little more difficult to procure thanks to the embargo, but I drank with a few pilots who flew charters to Jamaica and Mexico and they kept me in HC and Cuban Montecristos. Customs never checked their flight bags. And if you saw the way these guys drank, you'd think twice before getting on a plane.
There are 2 types of bitters, from what I remember; the alcoholic stuff (almost 50% alcohol) that are very effective at settling upset stomachs (we'd do bitters and soda at the bar to fix upset stomachs), and then there's the non-alcoholic type that is used just for the taste. Never heard it being classified as a poison, mild or otherwise... at least no more than any other alcoholic beverage.
Me either, nor illegal. And I swear, nothing works faster or better at settling an upset stomach, though peppermint works well, too. That's what I give the kids. A few drops of peppermint oil in club soda, or a couple of Altoids if we're not home.
Yep. Also used a bit of bitters mixed with water in a spray bottle to stop puppies from chewing on furniture legs. Just spray a bit on table legs or couch legs and they'll taste it once and never try again. Damn handy stuff, that bitters.
Unless you have acid reflux, then peppermint is a no no. But I have seen the bitters and soda thing work very well.
When our mini schnauzer was teething, he took to chewing on some corner molding on an archway post between the front door and the living room. I tried Bitter Apple which wasn't much of a deterrent. Next, I got out some Habenero hot sauce and smeared it where he'd been chewing. He gave it a good lick and literally started doing backflips in the living room. I honestly though he was going to die. He didn't, but hasn't chewed on anything other than the chocolate lab or one of his toys since. And ground cayenne pepper mixed in the dirt also stops dogs from digging holes.
Maybe the bartender was lying to me, honestly I have no fucking clue about the things. I was also bombed every night I was there to both the comic amusement and mild irritation of my wife so I'm guessing a few things probably got lost in the translation as well. However, I got to have a mojito in Hemmingway's bar, which was pretty cool. He wrote For Whom The Bell Tools while living above it.
When you see a cocktail recipe that calls for bitters, 99 times out of 100 it's calling for angostura bitters. It's not toxic. It's related to angostura bark by name alone, the bark is used for purely medicinal bitters and isn't in the boozy kind. Spice traders would pack a very similar looking, cheaper, toxic bark into sacks of angostura bark back in the day to save money, thus the "bitters is toxic" thing. It was a sad couple weeks last year when there was a bullshit shortage of it (no one knows why, supply chain issues supposedly). Maker's Mark and a splash of bitters is the tits.