Getting Jiggly and ABD

Went to journeygal's for a Halloween party last Saturday, and was inspired by this best tasting Jell-O shots article to take Jell-O shots. Well that, and the last party of their which I went to which gave me the impression that their crowd appreciates new and interesting drink consumption techniques.

I did some mid-week testing of various recipes. For simplicity's sake, I wanted to limit the flavors of Jell-O I was going to buy. I wanted max variations for my alcohol dollar as well. So after checking out the recipe, I decided to go with cherry and orange Jell-O with Amaretto (tastes like maraschino cherries), Peach Schnapps, and Creme de Cacao (chocolate). I was going for:

Cherry-Amaretto
Cherry-Peach
Cherry-Creme de Cacao
Orange-Amaretto
Orange-Peach

And for the non-drinkers (or drivers, like me), I did a Cherry-Chocolate version without liquor from Seltzer water and Torani chocolate syrup.

Mid-week experimentation led me to the following recipes:

Base Recipe:
Add packet of Jell-O to 8 oz boiling water
Cool to room temp
Add liquor mixes
Portion
Chill

The liquor mixes I tested (all with cherry Jell-O):
4 oz Amaretto + 4 oz Vodka - good
4 oz Amaretto + 4 oz Vodka + maraschino cherry - even better
4 oz Creme de Cacao + 4 oz Vodka + maraschino cherry - awesome
4 oz Peach Schnapps + 4 oz Vodka - not great
8 oz Peach Schnapps - much better
8 oz Vodka - not great

So I settled on the Amaretto + vodka, Creme de Cacao + vodka, and peach schapps variations, using maraschino cherries in the non-peach variation.

Lesson Learned: when doing Jell-O shot taste tests, taste and spit out. Not a good mid-week night. I got intoxicated in the not-fun way. Drove waaay past buzz and straight to "holy crap, am I going to die?"

Slight miscalculation on the day of the event. Not enough maraschino cherries. And miscalculated the yield. Used these 2 oz "souffle cups" to portion the shots:



When I put two tablespoons of product in each, I got 30 shots from each double sized Jell-O packet. But I made the mistake of doing one recipe with each packet, which meant 120 shots. Oops. Oh well. Now I know. For next time.

Party was lots of fun. People seemed to have fun with the shots, and no one had too many at once.


No costume for John. :-(

It was a really fun group, not at all wild. Maybe the kiddos calmed us down? If so, they're a good influence. Played some Taboo with them. journygal has some amazing Taboo skills. I don't.

pilgrimgirl won that evening's Ticket-To-Ride "Micronesia Edition" game. She claims it wasn't as fun since those gamers weren't making good strategy decisions. Might have been the effect of alcohol. I was too busy with Taboo, so I couldn't comment.

Nice long conversation about dream recall.

EVH and I stayed waaay too late. I didn't make Meeting the next day. :-)

I woke up late Sunday, didn't make Meeting, but did make the OC Swing series, then went to an Atomic practice for the Hullaballoo performance. Added in See-Saw, which was a shock. Seems like it should be easy (just a variation of Big John's Special), but the music cues are very different.

Ran 90 minutes late to the Quaker Meeting's "All But Dissertation" party. There are 5 or 6 people who are at that stage in the area. Hooray for them. I get there in time to see 3/4 of the Remy clan leave to do homework. I manage to get in, get some casserole, cake, and Apple-to-Apples. Back to Casa de Remy for more Apples-to-Apples and chatting with pilgrimgirl and EVH. Left waaay too late again. :-)