Texas Monthly: Liquid Assets

Featured in the November/December 1989 issue of Domain Magazine

Liquid Assets

With these libations, we wish you health and happiness.

Vodka Martini, Up
Hot Apple Pie
Champagne Noir
Spirulina Cocktail
Southwestern Pimm's Cup
Champurrado

The wish, the promise, the clink, the quaff. Spirited or sans, the holiday toast is an essential of the season. It is a time-tested ritual, a temporal benediction, a shared hope among friends and loved ones. It is the notification that we have come through and will go forward, the realization that our wants are few, our blessings many. Verities of this sort emerge when people halt the headlong rush, form a circle, and raise glasses on high.

(Below lists ingredients for complete menu; for individual recipe grocery lists, see separate recipe pages.)

Meat & Dairy
Whipped cream

Produce
fresh raspberries
1 banana
mint leaf
nopalitos (nopal cactus pieces)

Grocery
Cracked ice
anchovy-stuffed olives
apple cider
cinnamon
cinnamon sticks
apple juice
Ruby Red grapefruit juice
instant masa
1 1/2 ounces Mexican spiced chocolate
sugar
brown sugar
vanilla extract
whole cloves
12 ounces evaporated milk

Health Food Store
spirulina powder
natural bee pollen
lecithin

Liquor Store
Absolut vodka
Cinzano dry vermouth
Tuaca liqueur
cognac
framboise
Chambord
brut champagne
Pimm's No. 1