Last night was a cram session at Tipsy Manor: cramming in a handful of drinks from the Dale so that we could stay on schedule for the Dale/David Project, and me cramming a bunch of buffalo wings into my mouth because I was so hungry that my stomach was digesting itself, since the meal took so long to prepare (next time--Pluckers).

Don't worry, there were more wings on the grill. I had to get the table set so that we could take a damn picture and start eating.

I decided for no apparent reason (no big game, no abundance of time) that I was going to cook Buffalo Wings from scratch--make the pepper sauce, then the Buffalo sauce; trim celery, make bleu cheese dressing; cut up chicken wings into drums, flappers, and freaky nub that nobody eats (I added these and some veggie scraps to make a quick stock), then smoke over charcoal and toss in wing sauce; cut and fry potatoes. And drink a bunch of cold Leinenkugel's, which Jenna and Tipsy thought tasted like "Grandpa beer."

While I grunted and bitched in the kitchen, Tipsy mixed cocktails with our esteemed guest Jenna Noel, associate publisher of Edible Austin magazine.

Jenna chose for her first drink the Mark Twain Cocktail. This cocktail follows a rather simple formula: Scotch + Lemon juice + sugar + bitters = yummy. It was supposedly described by Twain himself to his wife in a letter he wrote from London in 1874.

The Mark Twain was well balanced, simple, and delicious

Tipsy flipped through the Dale and found the Paris Cocktail. Consisting of gin, dry vermouth, and creme de cassis, shaken and strained, and garnished with a flamed lemon peel. It was reportedly created by Colin Field at the Hemingway Bar, Ritz Hotel, Paris.

Tipsy was getting artistic (and tipsy) with this photo. The Paris Cocktail is much sweeter than we expected.

For dessert we had a lemon cheesecake pie that a friend brought us from his aunty Marie (Calendar's). To wash it down I made two frothy creamy drinks. The first was the Parisian Blonde. According to Dale, "This is a vintage cocktail in the tradition of the classic Alexander... The name remains a mystery to me." She consists of rum, orange curacao, and heavy cream, with a few drops of vanilla as a garnish on top of the frothy head.

This cocktail was not super exciting.

Next up I made a Pink Squirrel. This is a drink that I have been meaning to make for a decade or more, ever since my first job in a restaurant/bar where they had the mysterious and aged bottle of Creme de Noyaux. If only the rest of the squirrels at Tipsy Manor were as well-meaning as this Pink one! I saw one of those bastards climbing up a tree with a couple feet of squash vine + blossoms hanging from his mouth; since all of the neighbors have dogs, the squirrels take refuge in our yard (and make refuse out of my Drinkable Estate).

The twisted little sister of the Grasshopper