Happy Hour: Port Cocktails

by Diana Vilibert

The way certain restaurants or songs become forever linked to the [boyfriends/crushes/guys I thought I was on dates with but were actually gay] who introduced me to them, I often associate specific drinks with the men of hangovers past. Like my first legal drink — the house pinot grigio — which, many hours later, became my seventh legal drink, the reason I had to avoid my local bar (and bartender) for a year, and the cause of my first experience throwing up in a garbage can by the bus stop. Or the first time I tried tequila. Or my first time drinking port, sitting across from my date, a man 20 years my senior who was missing a tooth (one of the important ones. I’m not a snob) and enjoyed casually switching to French mid-conversation, resulting in an informal audit of how many times one could shrug and say “… I don’t understand what that means” to shockingly little avail.

Our courtship ended not with a bang, but with him yelling “salope!” at me when I declined his offer to go home with him. But unlike aging, dentally challenged ex-pats, drinks deserve second chances, and now I always have a bottle of port at home. In fact, I find it to be the perfect single lady drink, whether you’re sitting back in a leather armchair enjoying a cigar and a roaring fireplace, or on the couch you dragged in off the street, enjoying your three square feet of exposed brick. Unlike regular wine, it lasts for a while once opened (up to a month, depending on the type of port), which is good, because at 20% alcohol it’s plenty boozy to enjoy in moderation, in theory, should you choose to do so.

If you’re not into sipping it straight though, you’re in luck, because it happens to make a great cocktail ingredient, too — as a float over a Whiskey Sour; mixed with equal parts sparkling wine as a brunch/linner/fourthmeal Mimosa substitute; or in this spiked lemonade recipe from Sandeman.

Ingredients:
1/2 part Sandeman Founders Reserve Porto
1 1/2 parts citron vodka citron (I used Absolut)
2 parts lemonade
Ice cubes

Directions: Fill a glass with ice, add the ingredients, stir well, and garnish with a lemon wheel.

You guys? I just thought of a great idea for a lemonade stand this summer. Quit your jobs and meet me at the Brooklyn Promenade in June, mkay?

Previously: Tacos and Tequila.

Diana Vilibert is a freelance drinker and writer in Brooklyn.

Photo courtesy Sandeman