Miraculous Cocktails?

[soc_puppet]

Hi there! As setup for a story I'm working on, I'm looking for help coming up with some Miraculous-themed cocktails. Specifically, I was thinking of theming them after the various attacks the Parisian superheroes use. The problem is, I know next to nothing about fancy alcoholic drinks! Or even mundane alcoholic drinks, for that matter. I'd love at least four drink ideas for my story, and anyone who helps will be credited in the opening notes. The characters appearing in the fic will be Alya, Marinette, Nino, and Adrien, and Alya is doing a story on the new cocktails for the Ladyblog.

My thoughts so far:

Cataclysm - The drink cannot be made black with activated charcoal, even though it fits both the color scheme and thematically. (I plan to touch on the possibility in the fic, as well as why it's a bad idea.) I'm still thinking a dark colored drink garnished with something bright green (a sprig of basil or mint, or a lime wedge), but am open to suggestions! Reversing the color scheme and making it with absinthe might also be a possibility.

Lucky Charm - My first thought was a mix with something red (raspberry syrup? Grenadine? Pomegranate?), garnished with black cherries for the spots.

Clout - Whatever else is going on with this drink, it would be a good one to really pack a punch 😉 Probably something purple for a garnish, but darker reds or pinks could also work.

Time Tunnel - Needs to be garnished with fresh thyme. No arguments. Might be good as a layered drink, especially if there can be two thin bands of color suspended in it, to represent the tunnel openings.

Second Chance - Also a good option to use thyme if we can find a way, but for the garnish I'm actually thinking of a cucumber slice cut into a spiral to look sorta like a snake.

Storm Dragon - Lemon for lightning, ice for water, extra carbonation(?) for wind; available in combinations, or as single elements. Lightning/Water would have ice and lemon, for example, but only normal carbonation.

Mirage - I feel like this one should have a color fade from or into orange. I know orange juice is sometimes used as a mixer, so maybe some of that?

Multitude - Served in multiple tiny shot glasses 😜 Okay, three is probably the smart limit, with five stretching things a bit, and all half-full.

Shelter - Maybe a jello shot variation? Something that puts a thin barrier over the top of the drink would be cool, anyway.



Those are the only ones I have any ideas on so far; the characters don't necessarily have to drink the cocktail that corresponds to their identity, either.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

squid ink? pls observe I know nothing about what its flavor is except that it has one, but depending on how strong a colorant it is, one might not need more than a drop per drink, and that might dilute the flavor into irrelevance?

Venom should have a sting to it somehow

I forget what the Ox power is called but I'm thinking nonalcoholic? since the power is immunity to magic, but also there could easily be problems inherent in equating alcoholic drinks to magic, idk

[soc_puppet]

I think I read that squid ink can taste kinda fish-y/salty? Which is not something I normally associate with alcoholic beverages, TBH.

A salted rim for Venom, maybe? That'd probably sting like the dickens if you have a cut on your lip or something. Not that the alcohol wouldn't, mind...

Oh, huh, that's an option; there should probably be at least one option for sober people anyway. There's also the thing where the Rat hitched a ride on the Ox to get to the banquet with God, so it would be fun to lean into that by making Ox drinks for designated drivers 😂

On that note, I might also make Shelter non-alcoholic, depending on if I want to go with Muslim!Nino for this fic. Come to think of it, it might also be nice to make Shelter vegan for similar reasons: Someone's going to want the option, and it can help out people with other restricted diets if they still want something fun to drink with their friends or whoever.

[soc_puppet]

Oh! Tea! A black tea syrup, maybe. Perhaps with a bit of catnip tea mixed in, because obviously.

[azurelunatic]

If I already had sugar glass domes, I would have a lovely green drink in a deep glass, then place a sugar dome upside-down on top as a bowl, filled with the black tea syrup. Then you strike the middle of the dome to shatter it and drop the black tea syrup into the green drink.

And the Shellter drink would have some kind of smoke or flavored vapor underneath the dome.

[azurelunatic]

My first question is whether this is at a bar or restaurant with its own permanent-ish supply of alcohol, or at a location where all alcohol and food and drink has to be specially brought in for the event. A bar specially set up for an event with special drinks is going to want to simplify a few things.
* Reduce the number of spirits that will need to be on hand: if there are special drinks they might be mostly vodka based with a few others.
* Reduce the number of mixers and such: if more than one drink uses the same apertif, fruit juice, and/or fruit for garnish, that's great.
* Reduce the amount of on-the-spot labor: pre-cut garnishes rather than things that require the bartender to do a complicated thing with an orange peel as the drink is made. These should be easy to transport for an offsite event, and be able to be stored compactly.
* Reduce the amount of prep labor: if it can be done with a vegetable spiralizer rather than someone slicing and then additionally cutting a cucumber, do it that way. Or perhaps there's a cookie-cutter like stamp for cutting the snake spiral in one step.
* Reduce the expense: none of the themed drinks are going to be using the finest vodka, it'll be normal vodka and the other ingredients should also not be super expensive. This means using small amounts of expensive items, or larger amounts of cheaper items. This is also why most drinks that use a flavored alcohol also use an unflavored, less flavored, or stronger alcohol to add punch.

Some of these things are mitigated if the venue is a full bar: you have whatever spirits and cordials and mixers and fruit and vegetable that are there normally, you don't have to account for the space and weight of every single ingredient the way you would if you were doing a pop-up at a venue that usually doesn't have its own alcohol. And for events that are deliberately trying to impress with a big budget or that expects the people attending to have a large budget, things can be fairly difficult and expensive.

For Shelter I might use a wide glass like a martini glass and an impressive but simple if you know the trick setup: sugar domes. That Chocolate Guy does it by heating probably isomalt to liquid, stretching cling film over a bucket, setting a cookie cutter or other round metal form in the right size on top, pouring a little cooled but still liquid sugar on the film, then pushing down around the growing dome with the metal form. The heat from the liquid sugar warms the air inside the bucket and expands it. Then once it's just set, he removes the form and pulls out the cling film from underneath. https://www.facebook.com/amauryguichon.chef/videos/the-sugar-dome-technique-is-so-satisfying-to-watch-%EF%B8%8Famauryguichon-sugarart/309457583069272/ Not shown, you trim the bottom with a hot knife (an easy place to have Marinette accidentally set her knife on fire because she hasn't wiped it down before reheating it).

Muddled blackberry is also a great way to get black dots.

[soc_puppet]

I was thinking of a cocktail lounge, actually, possibly attached to the hotel where Chloe lives. (And I am fully prepared to have one "recently opened" there if one doesn't already exist in canon/reality.)

More fic details:

PRPR, probably. Alya has arranged to meet with Marinette a while before the official tasting as an excuse to vent about some of the fanfiction she's had to moderate on the Ladyblog's forums, now that she's started allowing 18+ content; the fic is specifically a fill for the "Safe Sex" prompt at kittens_and_spitefic. (A friend went on a rant about people thinking condoms are unsexy when I initially shared the link on Discord, and while she declined to write the fic herself, said I was welcome to use it.) Alya will complain to Marinette about how some of the userbase completely dismisses condoms (etc) as unsexy, then goes on a rant about how and why exactly they're wrong, complete with TMI details and creative suggestions. Adrien and Nino show up unexpectedly at the tail end of the rant, right on time for Adrien to volunteer to test some of the options out with Marinette. Or something similar.

I figured a cocktail lounge would be a decent place for this conversation, since it's basically a public avenue but quieter/classier than your average bar, club, or pub, and otherwise a better atmosphere to have this sort of conversation in. That part's a bit of a shot in the dark for me, though, since I'm a non-drinker. The other part is that, if it's attached to a big hotel with a fancy restaurant and a well equipped kitchen, the cocktail lounge could rope the kitchen in to make some of the garnishes. (Source: The hotel I work for had the bakery make fresh whipped cream daily for the lobby's coffee-and-booze-station.) Does that sound plausible? Any other thoughts based on that?

Also, I am loving the idea of mulled blackberry for black dots; probably easier to get year-round than black cherries, if nothing else! And the sugar dome suggestion has definite potential that I may need to explore more of.

[azurelunatic]

A cocktail lounge in the hotel sounds extremely plausible and perfect! There's a convention that I used to go to when I lived near San Francisco that uses the same hotel most times, and the main dining area is just off the lobby, behind a bar space, and it converts between dining and bar/lounge based on the time of day, who is there, and what they're ordering. At certain times of day it's nearly deserted, particularly after the last lunches have trailed off and before people wrap up their work day and start getting snacks, libations, and dinner.

I was thinking similarly, that the hotel kitchen would have all the equipment to do some pretty avant-garde things for fancy drinks. And that opens the door to full-on molecular gastronomy as well as sugar work and creatively cut garnishes.

Storm Dragon sounds like an excellent opportunity for spherified elements and mix/match alcohol/not: make popping boba out of lemon syrup and a limoncello syrup, make little sphere ice cubes, and carbonate the selected boba on the spot for extra wind as desired. Garnish with a candied lemon peel strip, bonus points for zigzag shape, probably cut out with a wave knife. It could also be served with a vapor element.

Clout could be a Long Island iced tea with passionfruit (for the pun on the French spell name which involves passion as a meaning) and maybe raspberry; Chambord is a classic raspberry liqueur and quite dark. There could be pop rock style candy involved to make it Extra. Also easy to make non-alcoholic by using regular iced tea with the same fruit mix in nonalcoholic syrups.

[soc_puppet]

Excellent, cocktail lounge it is!

I love both of those cocktail ideas 😃

Tell me, how bad of an idea would it be to include a small cube of dry ice in any given cocktail? Do you know?

[azurelunatic]

It's frequently done but should be done with caution and make sure that the drinkholder knows that they must not consume the dry ice or let it come into contact with any body part they care about

[soc_puppet]

In that case, I'm pretty sure I'll skip it; like activated charcoal, the health risks outweigh the coolness factor.

[azurelunatic]

I could see it being safely used in a punch bowl controlled by the bartender, or used to keep cool a group of drinks that are allowed to sit and evaporate before they're served, but yeah, probably best to avoid.

https://www.cocktailsafe.org/ is a great resource for miscellaneous safety tips and double-checking a specific item that seems awesome but risky.