We went to the Wildrose the night before Thanksgiving and had a couple drinks with some friends we hadn’t seen in a long while. Some karaoke was sung, but not by me. I ran into a few people I hadn’t expected to see, and got to catch up with some folks.  It was a fun night.

We were up surprisingly early the next morning, which turned out to be a blessing, because poor Laura was cooking nearly all day long with only a short reprieve while the pumpkin pies were baking.  My jobs were acorn squash, green bean casserole, and hot buttered rum.  I’ll just say it: I think I might make the best hot buttered rum known to mankind. I also make a decent casserole and squash, but I shine in all things cider.  Laura’s turkey turned out great, her potatoes are always to die for, the stuffing was amazing, and so on! Logan brought over the most delicious sweet potato pie I’ve ever had before they had to go up north for a more family affair.

Laurie and Beka came over with their own array of delicious holiday dishes. My favorite was Beka’s little croissant-looking cookies, but Laurie made an amazing lemon meringue pie.  There were some other great dishes, but I zeroed in on the sweets, heh.

We had waaaay too much food for just four people, but it was a meal to remember. After dinner the others went down to watch the game on tv, but I opted for a less football-y option upstairs.  At halftime we all packed our guts a bit tighter with some pie, and after the game we played Trivial Pursuit: Pop Culture Edition. Laurie won. I sabotaged myself with my big mouth, but I wasn’t even close to winning.

On Saturday we went to the Dunshee House and picked ourselves out the best tree ever.  It’s adorable and has been making the house smell absolutely amazing. Yesterday we trimmed the tree while sipping some spiked eggnog and listening to my new favorite Pandora station: Swingin’ Christmas.

It was a great long weekend at The Estate.

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I usually do this thing with bartenders where I’ll tell them I want something “light, fruity, and sweet with vodka,” and I leave it up to them to see what they’ll come up with.  If the first drink goes well then I let them come up with something new for me each time, but when I come across a dud then I go back to the old standby Cape Cod.  It’s always so sad when the most interesting drink a bartender can think up for me is, “a lemon drop?”  Uh… thanks.

Anyway, so I told him I wanted something light fruity and sweet with vodka and he whipped up something so interesting and perfect that I was hooked.  He moves so fast and has so many different homemade potions there that you have no idea what he’s mixing together, you just know you want it.

For my second drink he asked me if he could make me a drink that he’s been working on except that it has a tequila base.  If it had been any other bartender I’d be like, no thanks, but it wasn’t and I said sure!  He started with a raw egg.  I’m not kidding.

He started with a raw egg and then a million other things flew into the shaker and everyone around the bar was watching what he was making and who this egg cocktail was for.  That’d be me.  When he handed it over it was a beautiful creamsicle color and smelled like burnt orange peel (a trick of his), and had a frothy top with a pretty orange design on top like they do with lattes.  It was delicious and citrus-y.

Antonio and The General were all about this dude’s skills then too and the rest of the night became, “What else can you do?”  He made Antonio a drink that tasted like a sno-cone with his own strawberry infused tequila.  The General got an Old Cuban, which had several layers to the taste.  He brought me by a special shot with gin and other things that smelled like oranges and tasted completely different.

It wasn’t just that he is some kind of drink genius, he’s also something to watch, because he moves so fast and so constantly that it seems like a show.  His name is Cacey or Kacey or KC or something of the like and he works weekends at Barrio as the bar manager.  The General wanted to keep him all to ourselves, but I just think that anyone who appreciates artists at work should go behold this guy.  He’s a bonafide genius.

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