Fourth Anniversary Drinking

OK, I admit, I'm backdating this post because, despite setting an alarm for myself on my phone, I forgot to make this post on the day...

...But today marks the fourth year of this blog, and it's just typical of me that the day is marked (retrospectively) without a proper new posting. What I will do, however, is mention something booze-related as a kind of quasi-celebration.

Most weekends, these days, my girlfriend and I venture to our nearest branch of Morrisons for a weekly grocery shop. Morrisons have an absolutely massive section for booze (which we normally ignore), in which is nestled a tiny section of shelf devoted to frozen cocktails, including Smirnoff's distinctly underwhelming sorbets and the rather marvellous Parrot Bay 'Freeze & Squeeze' cocktails, which are essentially the same sort of thing but with rum rather than vodka.

The full range comprises five drinks - Berry Daiquiri, Citrus Daiquiri, Mojito, Passionfruit Caipirinha and Pina Colada - but my local Morrisons tends only to stock the Berry Daiquiri and the Mojito options (though we did once find a single Passionfruit Caipirinha and have yet to try it out). It's a simple concept - each plastic bag contains a ready-mixed cocktail which you stick in your freezer. Once it's ready, you squeeze the bag to crush up the ice (it's often helpful, as the directions suggest, to run the bag under warm water for a few minutes) before cutting it open and squeezing the contents into a glass for the perfect frozen cocktail.

It's a neat idea, and a pretty successful one... Just be prepared for possible brain-freeze.

On a non-alcoholic note, at least one of my properly local shops has started stocking Coke Life, a variation on the usual caffeine fix that claims to be nice and natural, as well as lower-calorie than the original. Having tried it and liked it, I thought it worthy of mention here... but I also feel the need to link to an article about it on Marketing Week because it follows a train of thought I hadn't considered. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the prophesy of doom, but I'd certainly agree with the assessment that Coke Life ain't half as 'natural' as it claims to be. The other amusing thing is that it mentions Pepsi Raw which, going by the ingredients listed, was basically a rip-off of the rather awesome Whole Earth Cola, but with cane sugar rather than agave syrup (and I'm not sure that was an ingredient when it first came out...)