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Gentlemen! We are at Def-Con 3! V-Day in D-minus six days!
What are you gonna do when this Hallmark-imposed holiday hits your doormat? Will you cave like a good, little emasculated doobie, run out and buy a $15 card jam-packed with novella-length proclamations of love and accompanying $75 roses?
Don’t be a eunuch and skip anything heart-shaped (unless it’s a hot tub or THIS STEAK!)
To celebrate Valentine’s Day, aim to wow your mate with a romance-inspired craft beer cocktail.
Why? Because craft beer cocktails rock. And, more importantly in this case, it’s important that you made something. Face it, guys, our ladies positively swoon whenever you make anything for them. You don’t need to slave over lobster thermidor. Mac-n-cheese from a box works; Toll House cookie’s works; a card made with construction paper works (hmmm…)
Head down to your favorite beer distro (mine is Bellport Beer) and grab the fixin’s for a romantic #craftbeer cocktail: Long Ireland’s Chocolate Porter and Lindemans Framboise (a raspberry lambic).
The porter has the aroma of powdered cocoa, is light and has a clean finish with residual cocoa-ness coating your tongue.
The lambic pours like fizzy Dimetapp or a urine sample from your worst nightmare. Yet, it’s pleasingly fruity in the nose, is almost candy-like in sweetness with a nice, tart finish.
The resultant elixir is a perfect blend of the two. The raspberries dominate the nose. The cocoa notes and mellowness of the porter help balance the lambic’s acidity and sharpness.
Pair with a soufflé you made yourself (nah, too hard) or some truffles you bought at Kilwins.
The Recipe:
Mix 2/3 porter and 1/3 lambic in a suitably sexy vessel (tulip glasses would rock but champagne flutes, though small, would work as well), garnish with a strawberry (or chocolate dipped strawberry for some extra-special eroticness!), present to your honey in bed and become famous around her water cooler as the most creative, sensitive and romantic man that ever manned in Man-dom!
At the very least you’ll Alpha over the schlubs that send flowers directly to cubicles. (What a sad cry for attention!)
Don’t kowtow to what card companies and jewelry companies tell you to should do.
Celebrate with your gal with this craft beer cocktail… in a heart-shaped hot tub… with a heart-shaped steak.
Now beat your chest for having the manliest Valentine’s Day ever!
BJ Gamboa is a craft beer aficionado who lives in Patchogue and does his best to drink Main Street dry. See more of his writing at beerzombie.blogspot.com.
(Heart steak pic from Lauri Spitz of Moustache Brewing. Recipe from Dave of Bellport Beer.)
