Today's cocktail: Blood & Sand

Today's ingredients: scotch, sweet vermouth, blood oranges, cherry liqueur

Today's vocabulary: zest flaming

Today's gadgets: FIRE!

I used to be a runner. I won't say I was good at it, but I ran with frightening regularity and frequency for a couple years. It was something I did to kill time. The "runner's high" is a real thing. I'd enter a 5K race probably once a month on average, 2-3 10Ks a year, and one--and ONLY one--half-marathon ever. It was cheap (minus race fees), measurable, as challenging as you wanted it to be, and dead simple: just put one foot in front of the other (disclaimer: this is by no means true, at least the simplicity part, as my track record of injuries to this day really stem from my ill-advised and under-prepared running regimen all those years ago). Short story long, it was basically what I did for exercise for a long time, to the exclusion of other stuff like, oh I dunno, getting strong enough to run properly in the first place (it was still never THIS bad).

One time at the beach, I decided to go for a run along the shoreline like so many other people do. I also was (and very much still am) a proponent of the barefoot movement, and rather than throw on my Vibrams, I thought it would be a great idea to run barefoot in the sand for a couple miles. Have you ever seen what sand looks like under a microscope? It's not dirt, not by a long shot. I attempted that run the second day of vacation. I was basically immobile for the rest of the trip. Good thing we had plenty of alcohol.

Blood & Sand

This is a classic cocktail named for a 1922 bullfighting movie of the same title. I've never seen it. It's just what Wikipedia told me. The same article is nice enough to provide a recipe:

• 0.75oz blended scotch
• 0.75oz blood orange juice, squeezed
• 0.75oz sweet vermouth
• 0.75oz Cherry Heering
• Pour all ingredients into a shaker filled with ice cubes, shake, and strain into cocktail glass.
• Flame orange zest over the top of the glass.

Before we get to the fun part, let me point out that, unlike previous cocktails here that used scotch, you really want something light and citrusy here, so no Lagavulin or Laphroaig and the like. I tried this with my go-to cocktail scotch, and it really overpowered the subtleties in the rest of the drink. Instead, this is when you want to look at that Glenlivet 12 we've used a couple times, or if you want to grab something else, a Dalwhinnie 15 or a Glenmorangie variety (unsherried would be truer to form, but sherried may work well with the sweet vermouth).

Blood oranges are great by themselves, not overly sweet, and the meat comes off the rind cleanly--no stringy fibers to get stuck in your teeth (at least not with the batch I got). The rest of the ingredients are pretty straightforward. What I was most interested in, though, was the fire component. I'd never flamed orange zest before: I didn't know it was a thing, but apparently it is. I even managed to do it a couple times without setting anything (else) on fire, though I didn't heat up the peel, which seemed to help it "snap" more crisply to release the oils. I'm not sure if the amount of released oil changes that much. Try it both ways, and don't be disappointed if you don't get a good "snap" right away. Alter the size and thickness of the peel you cut away. Also, this is not a flambé-size fire, so actually torching anything would take an insane amount of talent (like, survivalist levels).

It's a little heavy on the number of ingredients, but it could certainly be worse, and the opportunity for a showy presentation makes up for it. This drink could also bridge any gaps between wine and scotch drinkers, so consider it at your next family reunion.