Wednesday, February 12, 2014

How to make a Shirley Temple cocktail (non-alcoholic)


 I think I can remember being served a Shirley Temple cocktail at the Little Venice Restaurant in Binghamton. I think I was about seven, which would make the date c. 1965. It was pink, and had a cherry in it. It was delicious. It tasted exactly like you'd think a cocktail should taste, if you were seven years old and had never tasted alcohol. From Wikipedia
The cocktail may have been invented in the 1930s by a bartender at Chasen's, a restaurant in Beverly Hills, California, to serve then child actress Shirley Temple. Other claims to its origin, however, have been made.
I think there's a chance that serving non-alcoholic "mocktails" to children, a rite of childhood for baby-boomers and previous generations, may be going the way of candy cigarettes, (Oh yes! We used to have candy cigarettes!)  but I can't really speak from any knowledge.  As fond as I am of the memory of my first cocktail, I kind of hope so.  Initiating children into the culture of mixed drinks is a little fucked up.

The recipe in the video uses lemon-lime soda, but I think ginger ale (mentioned in the wikipedia articlke) is more traditional.

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