Cocktail of the Week -- Kickoff To Carnival Edition



Today is the Feast of Epiphany, the beginning of the Carnival season that culminates with Mardi Gras (or Fat Tuesday). Also known as The Twelfth Night (literally the 12th day after Christmas), it is celebrated in New Orleans by the Phunny Phorty Phellows, who commander a streetcar and ride it to begin weeks of revelry that end before Ash Wednesday and Lent begins.

To mark another sign of normalcy returning to the city, let's have a drink -- a drink featuring a New Orleans original: Southern Comfort. SoCo was invented in 1874 by New Orleans bartender M.W. Heron, who developed the liqueur to mask the taste of unreliable (i.e. inferior) whiskey. BaT is here to confess that Mr. Heron was wildly successful. One of the best SoCo drinks is tonight's Cocktail of the Week: the Mardi Gras Mambo.

Ingredients

1 1/2 parts Southern Comfort
3 parts pineapple juice
1 part club soda
Grenadine
Fresh Lime

Instructions

Combine the Southern Comfort, juice and club soda. Add a squeeze of fresh lime. Add enough grenadine to turn the cocktail a peach color. Pour over ice. Garnish with a lime and orange wedge.

Hail, Rex!