Cocktail Hour

For those of you married, do you ever dream of what you’d do differently if you had the opportunity to plan your wedding all over again? I was never one of those girls who dreamed out my wedding day for hours on end. To be honest, I’m still surprised myself that I met the love of my life when I was 26—I would’ve predicted a much older encounter. At any rate, I love the way my husband tells it as something like me strutting across the CNN newsroom and him checking out the goods squeezed into skinny jeans. To which I pulled the trump card several months later, the ol’ I’m too tipsy to drive home, we’d better go back to your place. Well played. By both of us.

But, I would do it differently. My wedding, that is. We got married October 18, 2003 and planning was stressful and I was a nightmare to be around, I’ll admit. For starters, I’d maybe not handle everything in the wedding department as an afterthought, since I was planning it with my mother four states away just after Shock and Awe began in Iraq, and well, I didn’t give two-you-know-whats about chair covers, dress alterations, and programs then. At that time I was making sure producers on our show’s team were getting outfitted with flack jackets and I was working 12 hour shifts for months on end. But, boy I care now.

I certainly would’ve created a drink for the cocktail hour. Maybe two, one for each of us, each D, a his and hers version of something lovely to sip on during a fall evening while we, the bride and bridegroom, posed for photos. And the drinks would’ve had a meaningful name, representing both the occasion and us. For the gents, it’d certainly include bourbon, since it’s my husband’s drink of choice, mine something varying off a Pimm’s Cup, since that and vodka tonics are generally the only two cocktails I order.

Here’s what we would’ve, should’ve riffed on for our cocktail hour. Two drinks—we’ll name them the Dahlia and the DSD Old-Fashioned respectively. It was either those names or else our drinks would be called Baghdad and Tight Jeans, and since the occasion included extended family in attendance and a small town in Kansas hosting, I thought names with our monogrammed initials and a pretty flower sounded a bit more respectable. I’m certain my Grammy and mother would agree.

Cin cin to (almost) 8 years.

Dahlia (a.k.a. Tight Jeans)
Recipe from the Napolean House in New Orleans
• Fill a tall 12 oz glass with ice and add 1 1/4 oz. Pimm’s #1 and 3 oz lemonade
• Top with 7up
• Garnish with cucumber

DSD Old-Fashioned (a.k.a. Baghdad)
Recipe adapted from Esquire
• 1 sugar cube
• 3 dashes Angostura bitters
• Club soda
• 2 ounces bourbon

Place the sugar cube (or 1/2 teaspoon loose sugar) in an Old-Fashioned glass. Wet it down with 2 or 3 dashes of Angostura bitters and a short splash of water or club soda. Crush the sugar with a wooden muddler. Rotate the glass so that the sugar grains and bitters give it a lining. Add a large ice cube. Pour in the  bourbon. Serve with a stirring rod.