Rachel Lee Arlington! I'll be damned. I didn't know she was still ficcing. She wrote one of my favorite XF smutfics, "With a Vengeance".

Oh my god! Some of the first smut I ever read was Rachel Lee Arlington. I *adore* "With a Vengeance", and have a huge soft spot for her Scully/Krycek stories. Off to read her new stuff!

RL, 'neat' means with nothing mixed in -- no ice, no garnishes, no seltzer or tonic or anything. Same as 'up' or 'straight', and my grandfather, a veteran abuser of his liquor, used to laugh at people who say 'straight up' because it's redundant.

Of course, he finally gave in and started ordering his martinis "up, with a twist", because if he just ordered them "with a twist" they put in vermouth, which he didn't want. (A twist is one of those little curls of lemon skin.) But every time he did this in my hearing, he felt the need to explain that 'up' technically does not include twists either.

He had vermouth issues.

So what was in his martini? Just gin? I didn't realise that was still considered a martini!

In college, the recipe for the Perfect Martini, was "pour chilled gin into a martini glass and think nice thoughts about Vermouth."

Yeah, he liked to say that you introduce the gin to the vermouth. "Vermouth, this is gin. Gin, this is vermouth. Which is going back in the cabinet now."

Although he used vermouth at home, and I think he had some places at which he was a regular where they rinsed the glass with vermouth and then filled it with gin.

old school, yo.

he had some places at which he was a regular where they rinsed the glass with vermouth and then filled it with gin.

That's how we did it at the place I tended bar in university.

I blame the BRQG (well, okay, and my desperate need to procrastinate) for the fact that I went looking for the infamous NSync/Pern crossover and read some of it last night.

It's not badfic in the traditional sense of the word; it doesn't have enough grammar/spelling issues to choke a cat, nor is there an egregiously-named MarySue. If you did a search n' replace with all the boy names, it'd be a pretty decent Pern story.

In college, the recipe for the Perfect Martini, was "pour chilled gin into a martini glass and think nice thoughts about Vermouth."

This is my FiL and his brother.

The gin & tonic? Keep gin in fridge with a bottle of tonic; look at the tonic when pouring the gin.

In college, the recipe for the Perfect Martini, was "pour chilled gin into a martini glass and think nice thoughts about Vermouth."

I have a friend who makes screwdrivers in a similar way.

Pour the vodka into a glass. Go to the fridge. Open the fridge. Show the vodka the orange juice. Close fridge. Drink "screwdriver".

My husband's old boss preferred his vodka on ice, with a twist of lemon. He made no bones of calling it anything else.

For my martinis, I like the spray the vermouth over the ice with a mister method. You get just enough vermouth.

On the original topic of Scotch -- there are two good cheap funky bars within staggering distance of what I've been known to refer to as the Mishadome.

One has Laphroaig for $6 a pop, and the other has it for $5. Now, since the beers I can drink run somewhere between $4 and $5 at these places (one does have cheap-ass beer for $2.50 per, but it's cheap-ass beer), I feel wrong not drinking the Laphroaig. So I can say from experience that if you're already a Scotch drinker of any kind, the tolerance for Laphroaig is (a) quickly picked up, especially if (b) you're drinking a lot of it at once. So (c), if you find the right funky bar, it's a very affordable night out. And (d), now I want a drink, and I need to get back to what I was doing before I logged on instead.