Startini Dreams and a Beer Cocktail

Cocktail time- it's the best time of the day!

Today we are doing cocktail time from two locations. The first is the comfort of my(Jillian's) own apartment whilst the tourists descend upon D.C. like locusts with strollers (I must admit, I would probably rather deal with locusts) The second is some remote location in the Virginia south where Liz & company decided to set up camp for the Fourth of July weekend (also to get away from the tourists). I get to "enjoy" a martini and Liz gets to push yet another recipe on our friends, some kind of a beer cocktail, because they are roughing it.

Sister and I were sitting on the couch waiting to venture to the Mall for the 4th of July dress rehearsal and (of course) one of this week's recorded Semi episodes (Shower Soiree) was on. Having just finally been able to find berry vodka I was ecstatic to see it being used in the Startini Dream! For a few weeks now I have been under the impression that

Aunt Sandy made up the elusive berry flavored vodka as I could not find it in liquor stores on both sides of the coast. I saw cranberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, acai berry but no plain berry. Just yesterday I was walking in my local liquor store, saw Finlandia berry vodka and thought, "Ewe, I can't buy finlandia" but then after some consideration and a good pondering of, 'What would Aunt Sandy do?' I decided to ignore my liver and buy the cheap stuff! The whimsical Startini Dream is made with 2 parts berry vodka, 1 part orange liqueur and a splash (not a dash) of lime juice. The drink is stirred and poured into a cocktail glass with fresh blueberries. The blueberries give the drink that delicious fresh flavor. They freshly floated on top of the drink until they grew intoxicated and sunk to the bottom (not a good sign).

I handed the cocktail to my sister and walked back into the kitchen. From the living room I heard a moan and gagging sound from my sister. Also, not a good sign. I tested the cocktail and thought she was nuts. The only bad thing about it was that I used cheap vodka. It was boozy, but it wasn't bad. I would drink this with a good brand of vodka. That being said, I have finished half the cocktail and will not be drinking the rest of it. G-ross. I hope Liz's beer cocktail is better than this.