I promised there would be cocktail recipes for the vanilla-ginger rum, and I was not a liar. I just had to take some extra time for tasting, and an even longer time because I couldn’t think of names for the cocktails, which is like the most important thing! Well, maybe not most important.

First, the cocktail:

Porcupine Racetrack

Ingredients:
2 oz vanilla-ginger rum
champagne
4-5 dashes of orange bitters

Put the rum in a glass! Top with champagne! Dash some orange bitters on there! You have yourself a drink.

And why did I call it what I did? Because I asked a friend, “What should I call this drink?” And she answered, “PORCUPINE RACETRACK,” because that is what she answers almost every question with. And the more I thought about it, the more I liked it; the drink is a little prickly and easy to drink very quickly. It is perhaps what the posh porcupine racetrack goers might consume! Also, this should be known, I am a very silly person.

Now, I promise not to name the next cocktail I come up with the “Barry and Levon”.

Last night I got the opportunity to not be a fool at all, thanks to David Burke at Bloomingdale’s, Inocente Tequila, and my dear friend Nicole of The NY City Dish. Nicole, through her crazy food-blogger connections (or more likely from dining at a David Burke restaurant before and filling out a comment card), got us on the list for the event: a four-course menu consisting of seven small plates, two desserts, and four cocktails, all for $42 (plus tax and tip). Obscene! Just an obscene deal, and the meal itself was ridiculous in a very good way, but this blog isn’t here to talk about food. Let me tell you about the booze that was the backbone of the event.

Inocente Tequila’s shtick is that that it’s triple-distilled, whereas most tequilas are double distilled, making for a particularly clean and smooth taste. There’s also something about a “micro-oxygenation process” and a lot of other cleverly chosen words to indicate that this is supposed to be a fancy tequila for fancy people. In any case, the event served up five variations to show off the booze:

1. Classic Margarita – Inocente tequila, lime juice, agave nectar. This one they just handed to us when we walked in the door, and continued to hand them to us until the dinner started. This was a lot smoother than I’m used to margaritas tasting, but to be perfectly honest, I am not usually drinking the classiest of margaritas. Okay, to be extra honest, if I’m drinking a margarita it’s usually frozen and came out of a pitcher. I am classy. But this was smooth and sweet, and reminded me in flavor of a caipirinha, one of my favorite drinks.

2. Double Down – Inocente tequila, cucumber puree, serrano pepper, lime juice, agave nectar. I am all about savory cocktails, especially those that involve cucumber, so I loved this one. It was fresh up front, had smooth body, and had quite a kick on the back end from the peppers. This went incredibly perfectly with the first course of ceviche and gazpacho.

3. Inocente Puro - Okay, that’s just the fancy name they gave it on the menu, but this was just a shot of the tequila straight, complete with a little glass of coffee beans and vanilla pods to cleanse the sniffing palate before sipping. Now, I don’t have much experience with blanco tequilas as sipping tequilas; my mom was into tequilas for sipping, but she mostly had añejo and reposado tequilas. This was very smooth and a little sugary on the tongue, and honestly reminded me of cachaça.

4. Pure Innocence – Inocente tequila, fresh basil, lemon juice, agave nectar, soda water. This was my absolute favorite, summery and refreshing. I’m really into basil as a cocktail ingredient right now, so having a fresh sprig right there to sniff with every sip was such a pleasure. I could have had about six of these without blinking.

5. Life’s a Peach – Inocente tequila, white peach puree, lemon juice, prosecco. This, though, was a disappointment as the last cocktail of the night. I didn’t get any taste of peach at all, just a strange bitterness and an unpleasantly heavily alcohol taste. The only good part of this cocktail was the little crispy balls of chocolate they floated in it, which I tried to be as subtle as possible (and mostly failed) at shaking all of them out of the bottom of the glass and into my mouth.

Was Inocente tequila good? Yes. It was smooth and combined well with a variety of cocktail types. Would I buy it on my own? I’m not sure, but that’s just a matter of my personal tastes. I don’t make many tequila cocktails when left to my own devices, and when it comes to liquor I’m going to be sipping, I prefer the bouquets of gin or the classic taste of brown liquors. Also, no one told me how much a bottle of this stuff costs, but I’m guessing it’s a lot. Still, it was a fantastic experience, and one I hope to repeat again next month at the similar event for Leblon Cachaça.

If it’s not clear what I’m referring to, have a little light reading. In short, the actual Master Cleanse is a terribly unwise thing that people do to cleanse their body of alleged toxins and impurities by, as mentioned, starving themselves and pooping a lot. My professional opinion as a medical doctor is that this whole thing is a load of—to use the technical term—hooey. Sounds terribly unhealthy! Not at all like my favorite healthy activity: drinking!

I always did find the sound of mixture of maple syrup, lemon juice, and cayenne pepper to be appealing, though. It sounds like a pleasant treat, but since I’m fond of the bacteria in my intestinal tract, I never bothered to sample anything like it. That was until I bought Sortilège Maple Syrup and Whisky Liqueur. It was one of those impulse purchases in the liquor store, when you spend a while staring at the various liqueurs and going, my god! Dill liqueur? Pine eau de vie! Maple Liqueur sounded just crazy enough to work, and I bought it without really having a grand plan of what to use it in. And then I remembered the Cleanse and got to formulating.

All the refreshing flavor with none of the presumed health benefits! Behold, the Master Cleanse:

Ingredients:
2 oz Sortilège Maple Liqueur
3 oz lemonade or sparkling lemonade
several dashes cayenne pepper

Put ice in a glass, put the ingredients in that glass, stir, and serve. It’s sweet and tart and a little spicy (or a lot, depending on how heavy handed you are with cayenne). And best of all, it is absolutely, positively, not good for you at all. Unless we mean spiritually.