The last six weeks has been the tipsiest period I can (almost) remember. The time since the last week of November seems like one continuous cocktail party. This is, I suppose, what you would call a "good problem."
First there was my birthday, number 30, which is as good a reason as any I can think of to start drinking. (Actually, a few days before my birthday was Thanksgiving; at about 11:00 on that day Joe's dad asked, while supervising the frying of the turkey, "Is it too early for a martini?", to which I responded with a hearty "No!", and headed for the wet bar. I suppose that was the first domino in the last month and a half of inebriation)
I historically have had low expectations when it comes to birthday presents, but Joe really knows how to shop for me. At Tales of the Cocktail last summer, we found out about a ton of cool new products, but the one that stood out the most was St-Germain, an elderflower liqueur made in France. Of course it is not available in Texas, and the little airplane minis that they handed out at the tasting seminar were only good for about one drink apiece. Even though I greedily pocketed as many as I could get my hands on, only a limited amount of satisfaction was possible from such a minimal quantity. Being a cheap bastard, I have not been able to bring myself to pony up the dough to have the stuff shipped. But on my birthday, my ship finally came in. Of the many wonderful presents that I received, this is one that stands out the most:

Joe got me not one but four bottles, wrapped up in a suitcase

In just a matter of seconds I went from having a memory of St-Germain to having a motherload. (Well, okay a case would have been the motherload, but four bottles was a surprise indeed). I have made a few drinks with it but the one I like the most so far is the St-Germain Cocktail, which was created I believe by Simon Difford:
St-Germain Cocktail
2 oz. Champagne or Dry White Wine
1 1/2 oz. St. Germain
2 oz. Club Soda
Stir ingredients in a tall Collins glass filled with big ice, mixing completely. Garnish with a lemon twist.

A week after my birthday, and a verrry long week before finals began, was graduation. If you graduate in the fall, the ceremony is before finals, which is a big tease, the last day of finals dangling in front of you like a martini on a stick as you cross the stage and collect your fake diploma. For all of the anxieties I had about graduating from college at the ripe age of 30, I realize that there are a handful of benefits, the most obvious of which being that at 30 most of us know how to party in a more sophisticated manner than we did at 22 (another being that at 30 we realize that life is too short for us to hang on to that tacky polyester cap and gown and that those must be discarded upon leaving the ceremony.) I was fortunate enough to have my party hosted by Paula Angerstein and her husband Paul, of Paula's Texas Spirits. If there is any place that would be ideal for throwing a party, a distiller's residence must be at the top of the list. Especially if the distiller has such fabulous taste as Paul and Paula. Perched on a hilltop overlooking the lake, their house is a beautiful place to celebrate, and they are incredibly gracious hosts. They made a great spread of snacketizers and mixed up several of their signature cocktails. Real Ale Brewing donated a keg of their Full Moon Pale Rye Ale, and I brought a bottle of St-Germain and a bottle of Lucid Absinthe to share with the guests.

We didn't have the equipment to properly "louche" the absinthe, but you can tell by the expression on my happy ass face that I didn't mind. It was fun partaking of the green fairy, and sharing the quality product with uninitiated friends and family who had either never had absinthe, or had only tasted the electric green mouthwash that they drank after dousing a flaming sugar cube in Prague, or what have you. I myself had never tasted the artisanal absinthe until I attended the lecture by Ted Breaux at Tales of the Cocktail last summer. Since then, I have been dying to get my hands on a bottle. Even though it has been legal for a while for exportation to the United States, there has been a shortage of supply of quality absinthe. Most of what is available is crap. In Texas, we just recently got Lucid, one of Mr. Breaux's formulations, a bottle of which I procured for this special occasion. Once I recovered from graduation weekend, I had just enough time to study for finals, after the last of which it was time to start getting tipsy all over again.