Jupiter Travels: Dylan's Candy Bar & Pop Rocks Martini

With the Academy Awards coming this Sunday, I started thinking about where I was last year when the annual gala was televised. It actually took me a few minutes to recall that I was in New York City. Having only been to New York City twice in my life, it seems that'd be the kind of thing I'd pretty quickly remember. But, true to my form, it wasn't the Oscars that I remembered, but what I was drinking. And that was something far more memorable.

I'd made a trip to New York with friends and part of our plan on Oscar Sunday was to pay a visit to Dylan's Candy Bar. Dylan's (owned by Ralph Lauren's daughter, who gives it her name) is a three floor candy emporium where every candy you've ever dreamed of is not only on display, but available for purchase. It's really a mulit-colored feast for all senses and is a "must visit" for any trip to New York.

Last year, what interested me most was the actual bar they'd just opened on the top floor serving all kinds of candy based cocktails. Gummi bear vodka? Yep. Strawberry Nerds mojito? Done. Sour Patch Kids margarita? Absolutely! Having found the perfect place to settle in and watch the ceremony, my friends and I grabbed a seat at a giant, circular table filled with gumballs and settled in to watch the red carpet.

With a quick thanks to mass transit, we got to work trying just about every drink on the menu (note it has grown a bit since we were there). Our overwhelming favorite drink was the Pop Rocks martini, a concoction featuring the infamous, explosive candy. Of course, it's syrupy sweet and that's part of the fun. It's a candy based cocktail, not something too high minded. It's also delicious and quite a show when it's served, with candy literally shooting out of the glass.

We didn't get any video of the bartender at Dylan's making it, but have a look at this video down below and my bestie and I will give you a demo of how to make them and how to get your Oscar party poppin'.

Jupiter Drinks: Big Blue Martini

Over the past year, Lexington has taken a decided turn towards beer. With the advent of The Beer Trappe, West Sixth and then a host of other breweries and beer-centric spots that are open or will be opening, it seems my hometown has devoted its collective attention towards the art of craft beer. For several reasons, these new businesses are a great thing for tourism, our local and state economy and as badges of honor for Lexington to show we support homegrown businesses.

However, the craft beer craze seems to have taken away from what I really prefer: the cocktail. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t turn my nose up at beer. As a lover of all potent potables, I’ve tasted the wares of our new craft breweries and can tell you that they are doing an excellent job. But, when on a Friday night, my friends are looking to go out, I don’t want a beer. I want a cocktail.

So, let this serve as the first in a series of posts that will be devoted to drinking my way across Lexington and finding where the really good cocktails are hiding. I know they’re out there.

Craft beer aside, Lexington’s first and true love is the Cats. So, it seems reasonable that one of the best cocktails in town is the Big Blue Martini at the bar that shares its name (though it adds an additional “g” to big). I’ll grant that it’s a hotel bar and not necessarily local, but you can’t beat it for people watching or for consistency. If there’s a convention in town or something going on at Rupp, grab a table at Bigg Blue and watch the chaos unfold. When weather allows, an outdoor table along Broadway is a must with its steady stream of street and sidewalk traffic that never disappoints.

The drink itself may not be exactly Wildcat Blue, but it’s a refreshing, citrus-y delight that’s colored blue from blue curacao (which is just triple sec that’s been colored).

Jupiter Drinks: Hurricane Jupiter

I am living proof that one can be sustained on booze alone. Not being the "partying" type, I only took one Spring Break trip in my four years of college. My roommate and I decided we were going to set out for New Orleans. I wish I could tell you that we had our sights on drunken nights on Bourbon Street, but we didn't. We were and are both fairly mundane guys. In retrospect, we probably would have found something more suited to us had we thrown a dart at a map of anywhere east of the Mississippi.

However, without any plan for what we were getting ourselves into an Accounting major (obviously, not me) and myself set out in my mom's purple Geo Prism and drove from Georgetown to New Orleans. It was somewhere around the middle of Alabama that my throat started getting sore. I thought my car singing was just getting the best of me, but by the time we made it to New Orleans I was losing my voice. When our first morning in New Orleans arrived, I had a fever and swallowing solid food was out of the question. A few hours later, I found myself in the ER of Tulane University's hospital and was diagnosed with what was my first and last case of strep throat. 

Mercifully, I was given antibiotics and within a few days began to feel better. However, for the majority of our time in the Crescent City, I didn't do much sightseeing or partaking in Cajun cuisine. However, I did discover the hurricane. 

I ordered my first one as a joke while my companion was lunching on something delicious. Through the sick and resulting booze fog I have no idea what he was having, just that there was some joke about the orange juice giving me some much needed Vitamin C. What I quickly discovered was a) these things are delicious and b) the cold drink felt amazing on my infected throat. From there, hurricanes became my only sustenance for the better part of 3 days.

The great thing about New Orleans is that if you want to exist on a diet of hurricanes, the City is happy to oblige. No matter what restaurant my roommate wanted to visit they were on the menu. Even a casual saunter through the French Quarter allowed me more than a few opportunities to grab a quick boost of Vitamin C to soothe my aching throat. And from there, it was nothing but love between me and the huricane.

Once I started mixing my own drinks, perfecting the hurricane was first on my agenda. Here's the problem: there's no exact recipe for a hurricane. It seems the quintessential hurricane is from Pat O'Brien's in New Orleans. However, they don't release what is in their top secret recipe/mix. A quick minute on the Google machine will find several folks who have claimed to figure it out, though.

It seems the consensus is that it should be somewhere between electric red and pale pink, it should involve the juice of some sort of citrus, it should be served cold and strong, but you should never be able to detect how strong it is from the taste. In fact, a proper hurricane should taste like a fruity, refreshing beverage without any alcohol at all. It's just you may not be able to stand up after you've had a couple.

My recipe has been consistent now for close to 10 years, and it's a bit of a cheat. You'll find most hurricanes call for a mixture of light and dark rum. My early home bar-tending attempts had financial constraints that only allowed for the purchasing of one kind of alcohol though, so I had to find a substitute; I found it in Southern Comfort.

Now, I know this isn't a high brow liquor. (See above reference to financial constraints). But, it's sweet, gives great color when mixed and it's fairly high alcohol content will make sure your hurricanes have a fairly strong gale force. Also, while swerving it to folks, I've managed to hear a succession of "the last time I had Southern Comfort" stories that can only come from this kind of liquor.

So, for the first time ever I'm sharing my ridiculously simple hurricane recipe. I hope it makes your Mardi Gras a little more festive, or at least works as whatever elixir you may need it to. Just maybe don't use it as a replacement for your Slim-Fast shakes.

Hurricane Jupiter
Southern Comfort
Orange Juice
Pineapple juice
Grenadine
Maraschino cherry (for garnish, and less necessary the more you make)

Fill a glass/pitcher/ vat with ice. Fill that to 1/3 full with the Southern Comfort. Add orange juice until 2/3 full, then the pineapple juice until almost full. Lastly, add grenadine to your taste for sweet and how dark red/light pink you want it to be. Give it a stir and enjoy, responsibly of course and if you're over 21.