Upgrade Your Comfort Foods: Drinking at Breakfast (Again.)
The Michelada at Nopalito in San Francisco
We’ve talked before about brunch, but since the weekend is coming up and you’ll (hopefully) be sharing some pre-noon cocktails with that special someone this weekend, I thought I’d focus today on those alcoholic beverages which are deemed acceptable breakfast-fare by the general population. Everyone is familiar with the ubiquitous (and sometimes bottomless) Mimosas and Bloody Marys, but aren’t you getting bored with those yet? (Especially after so many!) Why not try something new and maybe impress you brunch companion in the process? Here are a couple of my favorites, at least one of which I just made up during a weekend drinking session in the park.
The Michelada: This one is fairly well known in San Francisco where the law stipulates that you have to eat Mexican cuisine at least once a week and make fun of LA burritos at least once a year – it’s essentially a Mexican Bloody Mary or Red Eye. The story I heard was that someone didn’t want to waste the spicy lime juice at the bottom of their bowl of ceviche, so they poured it in a beer, and created the Michelada. To make it yourself, you don’t need to go whipping up any ceviche, just take your favorite Mexican import and top it off with lime juice and hot sauce. Don’t bother trying to mix it in a fancy glass or anything, just rub some salt around the lid of the can and shove a lime down in there and you’re good to go. Like making a good Bloody Mary, the recipe can be tweaked to your liking. Homemade drink cost: $0.50 (presuming you bought the beer in bulk, and you’ve got hot sauce lying around.)
Broke Ass Mimosa: This one came about because the 7-Eleven near Dolores Park sells tall bottles of Blue Moon and Odwalla Orange Juice. Basically, you’re just mixing beer and OJ at a ratio that’s to your liking. I suppose you could use any kind of beer, but wheat beers tend to go best with the OJ. On the scale of classiness it lands exactly midway between a Steel Reserve Brass Monkey and a Cristal Mimosa made with oranges from the farmer’s market. Homemade drink cost: ~$2 per drink ($8 for a Blue Moon 6-pack, $3 for a half gallon of OJ = 6 drinks.)
Gin Madras: If you need some actual hard alcohol with your breakfast, this is a good one to impress your date/confuse your waitress. It’s a cross between a Screwdriver and a Greyhound, which means it’s just Gin (or vodka, if that’s your thing) OJ, and grapefruit juice. Simple! If you don’t have any clean glasses, just pour liquor and OJ right in to half a grapefruit. I’m pretty sure that’s a smart idea. Homemade drink cost: How much do fresh grapefruits go for these days?
Black Velvet: Fill half a pint glass with champagne, and fill in the rest with Guinness or some other Stout beer. (If you’re fancy, you pour the Guinness over the back of a spoon to layer it. Whatever that means.) This drink seriously weirds me out, but if you’re Irish and you have something to celebrate before Noon (probably the fact that you survived last night’s 15th round of Jameson’s) then it kind of make sense. Homemade drink cost: $3 and up, depending on the quality of champagne you got.
So what did I miss? Got any other great morning-after concoctions that you’re dying to share? Leave ’em in the comments so other people can judge you on your alcoholism.
(Michelada photo from flickr user: Claudine)
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