“Drink” of the week in honor of Parents weekend

If you’re lucky, your parents will be coming in to town this weekend.  If you’re super lucky, your grandparents and siblings will be coming too.  If you’re more cosmically advanced than the average Yale student, your aunts, uncles, divorced parents, and cousins will be in town too.

Let’s face it: parent’s weekend kind of sucks, especially if you’re family is not quite as rosy and well behaved as my family, almost all of whom will be attending this event.  Introducing them to your friends and teammates is going to get old quick, so why not go the way of your typical Saturday night and make an awkward situation much less awkward by throwing alcohol into the mix?  I don’t mean that you should throw your parents a stodgy wine and “Gourmet” Heaven cheese party.  Instead, why not go all the way with jello shots?  Based on their frequent appearance in “Spring Break” towns and their creative use of a “dessert” “food” in conjunction with alcohol, jello shots are about the tackiest “drink” in town.

You can go the typical route and buy Jell-o brand gelatin, or you can add some class to your tacky evening and use Agar Agar!  Agar agar is a jello substitute you can pick up at any Asian food market.  It comes in bars, not in powder, so you’ll need to soak it in warm water for half an hour first and then boil it for about 10 to 15 minutes until it becomes liquid.  Pour whatever alcohol you choose into a shot glass or plastic “portion cup” (may I recommend Bulldog Gin??) and then pour the agar in on top.  You can really go crazy with these and add all kinds of flavors and alcohols.  The agar agar doesn’t have a flavor, so mix it up with some interesting mixers.  You can also mummify fruits and edible flowers to make for a nice presentation.  Add blueberries to hypnotiq for some seriously boola bulldog blue shots.  You can even add orange or lemon rind for a martini or crushed mint for a mojito. Have fun with it, just keep in mind that pineapple will make the jello not be able to set.

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