I am a good bartender. One of Boston’s favorites 2011. Not that anyone is keeping track of that. I am. But I do not like creating cocktails. I’ll make cocktails all night like it’s my job. But if someone asks me to create something, I stop breathing, I feel the onset of a panic attack and I have to go to my safe place.

So imagine my surprise when last night I was inspired to make a cocktail. Our pastry chef made a fantastic gingerbread mansion:

I want to go live in it. Only in Cambridge do Gingerbread families need two stories. After the pastry chef was done making it. She gave us the leftover supplies. So last night there was a huge box of window shutters, i.e. mini-candy canes up for grabs.

In my head the cocktail creation wheels groan to a start. I approach it like a fashion dilemma: the candy cane as accessory. It would look great in a martini. It would look great in a green martini. What is green and minty? Et voilà!

It is a neon-green martini, straight from 1995, that would make any cocktail snob throw up a little in their mouth. BUT it’s beautiful!

Santa’s Helper