Instead of spending money on fifths or even liters of our essential ingredients, my boyfriend and I bought a variety of miniatures. (50-mL bottles, or between 1.5 and 2 fluid ounces. Apparently they're called nibs here in New England.) For the same cost as just a couple regular-sized bottles of liquor, we were able to buy everything we needed to make six different drinks—three for each of us.
Here are the (mostly) classic cocktails we tried out:
- Amaretto Sour
- Tequila Sunrise
- Chocolate Martini
- Tom Collins
- White Russian
- and this crazy thing called a Monkey Gland Cocktail I stumbled across on Forbes magazine online, of all places
Each 50-mL bottle is about the same as one shot, the right amount of alcohol for one drink. The Monkey Gland calls for absinthe, which was our only budget breaker: we found a 100-mL bottle for $9.99. If you're just looking to try it out or only need a little, though, this amount goes a long way. A full-sized bottle will run you closer to $50 or $60. No thank you.
Did you know you can make your own sour mix and grenadine at home? Sour mix is just heavy simple syrup plus lemon juice, so I bought one lemon for 69¢ instead of spending $4.99 on a whole bottle of the pre-made stuff. Grenadine is just pomegranate juice plus sugar, but I actually didn't save money here. I paid a dollar more for real pomegranate juice than I would have for grenadine. However, the grenadine at the store is almost entirely high-fructose corn syrup, not actual juice. I think this is an extra dollar well spent.
The Monkey Gland and the Tequila Sunrise both call for orange juice, but I didn't want to buy a whole carton just to use about five ounces of it. I bought two oranges and fresh squeezed them. I'm sure this is much tastier, anyway.
Shopping list and total price:
| amaretto | $2.99 |
| tequila | $2.49 |
| vodka | $3.50 (for 2) |
| gin | $5.98 (for 2) |
| Kahlua | $2.49 |
| chocolate liqueur | $3.99 |
| absinthe | $9.99 |
| lemon | 69¢ |
| 2 oranges | $1.07 |
| pomegranate juice | $4.99 |
| club soda | 59¢ |
| Grand Total: | $38.77 + tax |
Sure, buying in larger volumes is a better value, but this was a cheaper overall cost and much greater variety for six drinks than we could've gotten if we'd bought larger bottles. More than 25% of our total was the absinthe, too, so we can make it much cheaper by nixing it next time.
Another thought: we're moving to a new apartment this weekend. This might just be the grad-school answer to the traditional housewarming party. Potluck, anyone?
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