In Defense of Root Beer

I took a rafting trip on the American River during the summer when wildfires raged over Northern California and smoke hung like a fog over half the state. We choked on the smoke all that 90-degree day down the river, with only warm, plastic-tasting water to quench our thirst.

So at the end of the trip, when one of the river guides produced a cooler filled with sodas on ice, I nearly cried with joy. I fished out a ginger ale to soothe my throat.

A group of Spaniards who had shared my raft were poring over the cooler. One picked out a root beer and brought it over to me. “Excuse me, is beer?” he asked. “Root beer,” I said, switching to Spanglish, “No es cerveza. Es soda — refresco.”

He opened it, took a sip, and made a face. His friends tried it and grimaced. “I think is for children, no?” he asked. “Of course not,” I said, starting to feel a little defensive. It was more soda than I wanted, but I grabbed a root beer just to show them. “Everyone drinks root beer.”

I then told them about root beer floats, trying to describe the glory of the classic American dessert-drink: the foam spilling over the top of the glass, the icy crunch that forms on the ball of vanilla ice cream, the creamy drink that remains once the ice cream is gone.

My adulations were lost on them. They looked at me blankly, then one blond Spaniard said that root beer tasted like “medicina del estómago” — stomach medicine — and the rest nodded.

But I had whetted my own appetite for root beer float. The last one I’d had was at a county fair, and it was a huge disappointment. The root beer had been warm, which caused the soft serve ice cream to melt immediately into a sickeningly sweet puddle.

So when I got home, I made up for it. I bought Dad’s root beer and Dreyer’s vanilla, chilling both well before joining them in float heaven. The root beer crust that formed on the vanilla ice cream ball had never been crunchier, the foam never so high. I showed those Spaniards.

Diving for Pearls

A few weeks ago I stepped inside a grocery store in Santa Rosa’s Southern Asian neighborhood. Prowling around for something fun to take home, I spied a package of black tapioca pearls and purchased them.

These chewy little balls of tapioca (themselves made of cassava flour) are, of course, the essence of pearl tea. I like pearl tea, especially milk tea—iced black tea with milk—but it’s always served so sweet I don’t order it often. Now that I had access to the pearls, I figured I’d make my own pearl milk tea and sweeten it as I like.

I boiled the pearls according to the oddly translated directions on the package (“stir softly”) and concocted a glass of Earl Grey pearl milk tea. It tasted great, but after chasing the pearls around with a spoon, I realized the drink was missing a crucial ingredient. The fat straw that allows you to suck up the pearls — creating that thrilling POP when the pearl lands in your mouth — is  what makes the drink so fun. Scooping them out with a spoon just didn’t cut it. Now on the shopping list: fat straws. I have a whole bag of pearls to use up.

The Sissy Drinker's Drink

White wine has turned on me. I used to drink it, like normal people, with poached fish and roast chicken. But lately every white wine of my acquaintance has become vinegar. I find it undrinkably acidic with a harsh aftertaste. My poor husband has tried everything—cheap bottles, expensive labels, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc. Alas, the only whites I can tolerate now are sweet dessert wines.

I have been reduced to mixing white wine with fizzy water—yes, it’s called a spritzer—which renders it potable. A spritzer is embarrassingly passé, so I can’t bring myself to order it in a bar or at a party. And, honestly, I don’t love it. But it’s more interesting than plain water, easier to swallow than fizzy water, and it contains about the right level of alcohol for a lightweight like me. I drink it in the privacy of my own home.

Once I resigned myself to spritzer drinking, I realized I didn’t have to limit it to white wine. Red wine and fizzy water is an interesting drink: it’s like a very dry soda—or a very dry, plain sangria. So I decided that if I’m going to water down my wine, I’ll do it in style. Sangria is my ideal drink: it appeals to my sweet tooth, I can drink two whole glasses without falling asleep, and my palate loves the tannins supplied by the red wine.

For a quick sangria, I’ll mix roughly equal parts red wine, fizzy water, and orange juice. Fresh-squeezed is obviously much better than the supermarket carton variety. The type of wine will change the nature of the drink, but as long as it’s a decent one, it’ll work. For a more sophisticated sangria, one un-muddied by juice, use sugar (a quarter cup–plus per bottle of wine) for sweetener; a quarter cup of brandy will round out the flavor.

Adding slices of lemon or orange, especially if you let them soak, will add a bitter edge as well as visual appeal. Apple slices are also cute, and delicious once they’ve absorbed the drink. 

Basic Mixology

Occasionally I find myself in need of a cocktail, and it’s at these times that I open up the venerable Mr. Boston or the Trader Vic’s guide and try to find something that’ll hit the spot. The problem is that we never seem to have all the ingredients the recipe calls for.

So I experiment, and it’s invariably a disaster—too sweet, too watered-down, too strong, too boring. I finally called my friend Erick, a bartender-writer-personal trainer, and asked for some guidelines. He gave me some simple mixology tips and formulas, which seem appropriate to share on New Year’s Eve. If you keep it simple, these drinks work.

The ingredients

Alcohol Because they’re nearly flavorless, vodka and white rum will mix with just about anything. Tequila goes well with citrus juice. Whiskey, dark rum, and gin have more personality and are tricky to combine.

Mixers Try flavored water, soda, fruit juices, or iced tea—herbal or black.

Flavorings Citrus peels, bitters, herbs, jalapeño slices, or spices: a little goes a long way.

Liqueurs Made with sugar and fruit, herbs, or spices, these are the secret behind the ’tini drinks.

Three basic recipes

Highballs (gin and tonic, rum and coke, greyhound) all follow the same formula. Fill a tall glass with ice, add 1 jigger—1 and 1/2 ounce or 3 tablespoons—of alcohol, then fill the glass with a mixer and any flavorings. You can add an ounce of liqueur along with the alcohol.

The ’tini recipe is 2 ounces of vodka and 1 ounce any flavor liqueur, shaken with ice, then strained into a martini glass.

To make a margarita, you can shake 2 ounces of tequila, 1 ounce sour mix and 1 ounce liqueur with ice, then strain into a glass. You can also serve the mix over ice, or you can blend the whole thing into a slush, if you have a powerful blender.

Happy New Year!

Photograph by Suat Eman