Bartending Books

Below are two books I purchased at the recommendation of Jeffrey Morgenthaler. They are great! I have tried several of the recipes in Vintage Spirits. It is amazing what gin can do. Plus, thank you amazon.com and shopwinedirect.com for providing some obscure ingredients. Shopwinedirect.com is amazing because they have a flat shipping rate of $10 dollars for up to 12 bottles of anything.

Here are some of the cool ingredients I have acquired. Left is Orange, Angostura, and Peychaud's bitters. Right is maraschino liqueur. All four items have crazy flavor.

Dark Eyeshadow

I think the trick to dark eyeshadow is two things:

1. Put it on BEFORE your foundation cream/powder. You really have to do this because it gets everywhere. So I just apply my fondation or base or shadow base to my eyelids (eyelash to brow bone) and then apply my shadow. Then I clean up whatever mess I made on my cheeks and do the rest of my makeup.

2. Don't try to be precise. It is ok if it is messy. Several reasons here: a) quit being such a crazy perfectionist b) no one will notice c) it is never going to be perfect no matter how hard you try

Nasty Gal

I love www.nastygal.com. I only buy from their sale section and only do orders over $50 to get their free shipping. Besides being very "in" and hip, their items are well made. Below is me in their Highlighter Skirt.

Food Diary

I am on a never ending quest to lose weight. I think most people in modern times are. And you can't always maintain your "fighting" weight. You would go mad. So when I need to shed the same ten pounds I gain and lose constantly, I use a food diary. Works like a charm. Really keeps you honest with yourself. Plus it helps me eat "clean". It is so easy to choose good food vs bad when you look at the calorie content. I know the calorie content on a lot of items so I can do my diary entries pretty fast but if you need to look some up you can just google it. Plus I am on myfitnesspal which has a great lookup for calorie content. Most the time when I talk to people who are having trouble losing weight it is because they are consuming way more calories than they think.

St. Germain Liqueur

Got this little bottle of St. Germain Liqueur and omg it is good. It is an elderflower liqueur. Go to their website to read about the cool and very French process for this product. After you do that immediately try this drink which I got from the website.

The St. Germain Cocktail

2oz dry champagne

1.5 oz St. Germain

2oz soda water

Pour all ingredients over ice and stir gently until mixed completely.

Phone Case

I love a cute phone case. I don't know... I guess they increase the quality of life since they bring a little joy every time you look at your phone. And my phone is always in my hand. I use it for work and personal. I read my Kindle books on there. I listen to Pandora and watch Netflix. My phone tells me when the sun will set so I know when I can hit the tennis courts. Oh phone! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways... LOL

Here are some of my phone cases I've had.

                      

Saint Patrick's Day

Woot! Christianity got to Ireland. Forget about Lent. Let's drink.

That's pretty much what I got from the Wikipedia article on Saint Patrick's Day. I DO like everyone wearing green.

Jeffrey Morgenthaler

Just discovered the best blog ever about bartending. jeffreymorgenthaler.com is amazing. The guy has incredible knowlegde and the drive to continue to make interesting, delicious beverages, either updates or completely new. I am a bit obsessed with this man's site.

He revisits the Old Fashioned with commentary on the Wisconsin Brandy Old Fashioned which is what I think most people are serving when they serve an old fashioned. Nice to read about since everyone makes them slightly different. And really muddling a marachino cherry with a good bourbon seems like a crime so someone needed to enlighten me.

Photowonder

Love the photowonder photo editing app. It's free and easy to use. I found it on the playstore on my droid phone.

Loungefly

My very favorite brand of bag is Lougefly. I buy them from ebags.com. Below is a picture of my lastest purchase. Great durability and very hip. I also love that they provide Hello Kitty merchandise. So cute.

Been gone a while...

Well, I've been gone a while but now I'm back. Don't worry! My love of Sally Hansen Salon Effects has not faded. I've got lots of new stuff to review and chat about.