Last Mountain Distillery

Sipdown (644)!

We had an unofficial staff party last night at a coworkers house; we all decided we’d bring some sort of tea and alcohol sort of pairing to drink and share some of our favourite tea/booze pairings. I mixed up two big pitchers of tea cocktails, and I brought those with me to drink and share.

This was mixed into a pitcher of iced Mango Fruit Punch tea (from DAVIDsTEA), Sweet & Sour Mix, and Peach Scnapps. When all was said and done, this pitcher was like a third alcohol and most of that alcohol was this vodka, which is decently strong. It was an interesting mix, because strong as it was it didn’t taste like alcohol AT ALL. Like, you could have easily finished the whole pitcher thinking it was just juice or iced tea and man you would have been fucked up. Really tasted a lot like the Mango Fruit Punch tea, but with a bit more body/actual “tea” taste from the tea in the vodka, which also had a SMALL amount of lemon in it. Only hints of peach.

Sort of weirdly Arnold Palmer like, also.

It was a good way to finish off this vodka, which I’ve had for what feels like a long time. I don’t drink super often anymore (like maybe once a month) so I’m in no rush to go out and restock the liquor cabinet BUT this is something I definitely wouldn’t be opposed to buying again sometime a long way into the future.

Happy New Year Steepster!

Hope everyone had a good night, and rang in the new year in the perfect way for them whether that be drunk and out partying or at home with a cozy mug of tea or anything in between or otherwise.

Personally, I spent the evening at a coworker’s (from VV not DT) getting drunk and playing board game with another one of our former coworkers and the host’s sister. It was actually a really, really fun time. Lately my house has filled so testosterone filled that I good “girl’s night” with friends was the perfect thing to really pull me out of a mood/rut I don’t think I was even fully aware I was in.

Most of the evening, my drink of choice was just straight salted caramel Criollu but I also had a couple glasses of this tea/vodka mixed with some cheaper, grocery store pre-made iced tea. The Criollu was better, but this was nice too. It felt appropriate to be drinking something fun and mellow for an upbeat evening of board games and laughter.

Also, something really cool happened. So, Liz, my coworker who’s house we were at, has two sisters who I’ve never met. One of them joined us for the evening, and she was just so fucking awesome. We like instantly hit it off – we just had a million things in common and she was so fucking chill. Well, one of the things that it turns out we have in common is that we’re both asexual! For her, I was the first other asexual person she had ever met and having also had that experience I know the feeling of actually, in a way, getting real validation that you are not alone. It’s so positive and uplifting, and comforting. Also, though, even though I’ve met a handful of asexual people before this is the first time I’ve ever met someone who is also ace, in person, that was just through random coincidence and not through LGBTQIA themed events or at LGBTQIA bars. And that was also such a positive feeling…

My roommate calls me, affectionately, a jellyfish because I’m asexual. At this point, I don’t even know where the nickname came from but it’s always stuck. At the end of the night, Liz’s sister was really determined to not let me leave without one of her art pieces. What was on the picture? The most gorgeously painted jellyfish.

Just.. fate, guys.

PS. I want to point out that I drank this one prior to midnight. I think that picking a good “first tea of the year” is very important and significant – so just wanted to be clear that this was not my first tea of 2017. Still need to steep that special guy up, though I have one picked out already…

So mixed this up with some lemonade when I got home from my mom’s house tonight as a sort of “Arnold Palmer” type drink. I was really enjoying it, but then I glanced over to my cup after leaving it unattended for like ten minutes?

We happen to have a bit of a fruit fly infestation right now – apple cider vinegar is kind of doing the trick to kill them but not nearly quick enough. Any suggestions for how to get rid of the pests would be HIGHLY appreciated, though.

Anyway – I looked over at my drink and there were about ten dead fruit flies in it that had somehow managed to make their way over to it in the ten minutes I was busy in the other room. So, had to dump out an otherwise good drink and that was really disappointing. Didn’t bother to pour myself another; the sight of so many of the gross motherfuckers ruined any inclination for a drink I might have had otherwise.

So before we hit the bar last night I had two cocktails from my home bar.

One was chocolate liquor and Kahlua mixed with crushed ice and coconut milk that tasted really nice but also like the kind of stereotypical iced frap type shit “white girls” order from Starbucks. The other one is the one that matter though, ’cause it used the tea infused vodka!

- One Part Sweet Tea Vodka
- One Part Apricot Brandy
- One Part Orange Juice
- Crushed Ice

Really good, very fruity/sunny. I find that this vodka has a bit of a bitter flavour to it on it’s own (I imagine the local distillery that makes it probably wasn’t very conscious of all the tannin in the tea they use) but paired with that sweeter brandy it was nice. Lots of stonefruit like flavour, but also lots of citrus (the orange juice/lemon from the tea). Easy drinking, for sure.

So, Last Mountain is a localish distillery that I know my Dad really likes though I’ve never tried anything brewed there up until I saw this – and then how could I resist!?

It’s essentially a combination of my two favourite things to drink: alcohol and tea, and I’m sure it’s gonna be a summer friend of mine. My friend James just turned 25, so we cracked open the “jug” to try for his birthday party. Everyone was pretty interested in what this would be like.

So, straight/neat this isn’t awful but it’s kind of a weird balance of kind of bitter and also quite sweet. It’s got a lemony flavour as well; reminds me a tiny bit of Brisk with alcohol burn? I wouldn’t really recommend this plain or as shots.

What I ended up doing for the evening was 2 oz. in an ice filled highball topped with Sprite and a splash of Limencello liqueur and that was tasty although still strong. I like my drinks quite strong,though. I’d wager it would also be REALLY good in lemonade as a sort of half and half/Arnold Palmer type thing. And of course you could also just mix it with cold brewed black tea or bottled “Iced Tea” like Brisk/Nestea and I’m sure that’d be fine too.