Older and wiser: hitting a quarter century

This past weekend I celebrated my twenty-fifth birthday (actually today) surrounded by a larger group of good friends than I realized I was lucky enough to have here in Paris. In my tower with its unobstructed view over the Eiffel Tower and the city of Paris, surrounded by people from the US, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, India, Russia, Croatia, Estonia, and Japan, I couldn't have predicted a few years ago just how successfully I would be living out my dreams of being part of an international community in the heart of Paris. Yes, I'm 25 years old and life is good.

We managed to comfortably fit 15 people in my apartment. (The 15th, Sam I, was taking this photo.) I was so excited to realize I could fit such a nice crowd chez moi!

Birthdays are a time to reflect on all that's happened in life, where you've been and where you're going, what you've learned and what you hope to discover and explore. (At least they're a good excuse to do so.) One thing I've genuinely wanted to learn more about is alcohol. (No, seriously.) I didn't drink in college because I eschew the culture of binge drinking on cheap alcohol. Nonetheless, now that I am legally allowed to drink and have enough spending money to occasionally splurge on an interesting drink, I've discovered that there's a whole world of interesting mixed drinks out there for which my knowledge base is next to null.

(Bear with my science nerd aside, but there is a biological basis to my interest in alcohol: I express the recessive, non-taster phenotype for both bitterness compounds phenylthiocarbamide (PTC) and 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP), which explains why I think alcohol, especially beer, just tastes excellent. As you'd probably guess, it's a trait prevalent among alcoholics... It also means that my taste-testing experience for beers is very different than most people since I just can't taste much bitterness. I find this stuff fascinating.)

Birthday flowers! There's something about having a full bouquet of flowers in a real vase as my table centerpiece that just makes me feel like I'm playing grown-up. For my birthday, I treated myself to this remarkably cheery assortment.

A birthday sounded like a great excuse to expand my knowledge of mixed drinks, and this learning experience sounded like a good theme for a party. As such, some friends and I assembled a list of interesting cocktails, I created an online doodle sign-up for all my guests to bring an ingredient or two, and we managed to pull off an experimental cocktail party far more successfully than I'd expected! (A special thanks to my parents who sent me a mysterious unmarked package full of cocktail making supplies the week preceding my party.)

Our final menu for the evening (supplemented by some hors d'oeuvres and pizzas so as to not tackle the evening on empty stomachs):

• Chocolate chili cocktail
• Piña colada
• B52
• Monaco
• Kir royal
• Chocolate martini
• Hummingbird (Jamaican cocktail)
• Champagne with strawberries
• Chocolate leprechaun (yes, you may be catching on to a chocolate drink theme here)
• Earl Grey martini

Though many of these are worth making again, the winner was uncontestedly the Earl Grey martini with which we concluded the evening's drinks menu.

Winning cocktail of the evening: Earl Grey martini. (Sadly, we didn't have any martini glasses...)

Earl Grey Martini (courtesy of AllRecipes)
5 servings

Ingredients: US measurements
2-1/2 teaspoons Earl Grey tea leaves
5 (1.5 fluid ounce) jiggers gin
white sugar, for rimming
2-1/2 wedges lemon
2-1/2 (1.5 fluid ounce) jiggers fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup and 2 tablespoons simple syrup

Same ingredients: Metric measurements
3 g Earl Grey tea leaves
225 ml gin
white sugar, for rimming
2-1/2 wedges lemon
110 ml fresh lemon juice
145 ml simple syrup

Sprinkle the tea leaves over the gin in a small glass, and set aside to steep for 2 hours.
Pour 1/4 to 1/2 inch of white sugar onto a small, shallow plate. Moisten the rims of 2 martini glasses with a wedge of lemon, dip the moistened glasses into the sugar; set aside.
Strain the infused gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup into a cocktail shaker over ice. Cover, and shake until the outside of the shaker has frosted. Strain into the rimmed glasses to serve.

Cook's Note 

To make it easier, the Earl Grey infused gin can be made in a large quantity ahead of time. To infuse the gin, pour 1 liter of gin over 1/4 cup of Earl Grey tea leaves in a glass or metal bowl, and allow to steep for 2 hours. Afterwards, strain the gin back into its bottle. Do not press the tea leaves to extract excess gin - this can make the infusion bitter.

We capped off the evening with a bit of chocolat fondant birthday cake, a birthday song, and a creative flammable 25-candle-substitute on which for me to make a birthday wish.

I'd forgotten to buy birthday candles but my friends ensured that I still had a chance to make my birthday wish!

Today I can say that I am indeed a bit older and wiser, hopefully not only on the topic of experimental cocktails. Thank you all for the snail mail cards, emails, texts, facebook notes, and wishes in person: you've made my twenty-fifth birthday an excellent and memorable occasion. I am very lucky to have so many wonderful people in my life, both here in Paris and across an ocean!