Every once in a while I stop and ask myself, do I have the balance right over here? Am I talking too much about alcohol for a cooking blog?

And then, as if to answer me, I see five or six examples of good -- sometimes excellent! -- cooking blogs that don't know shit about alcohol, whether it's somebody cutting the rum in a mojito with vodka, or talking about what the best margarita mix is (look, cooking blogs: this is no different than asking what the best flavor of Hamburger Helper is, and if you still want to go forward and ask the question, that's fine, but at least recognize that you've stepped out of your gourmet zone), or getting all nervous about an infusion (putting a flavoring ingredient into distilled alcohol, a process that has nothing to do with creating alcohol and will do nothing more than add flavor to that alcohol) and referring to it as "fermentation" and "hoping nothing goes wrong."

And then I think, well okay then, THANK GOD FOR ME.

Seriously though - for some reason I'm less surprised when cocktail blogs show that they don't know anything about cooking than when cooking blogs show that they don't know anything about drinking. It's not a hard thing to know about, and it shouldn't be hard to figure out some basics.  Things like "it's better to use real ingredients instead of bottled mixes" should just be your starting assumption, not something you need to be told.  (The gimlet is the exception: a gimlet is gin and Rose's lime cordial.  If you use fresh lime juice, I'm not telling you it won't be a good drink, but it will be a DIFFERENT drink.)

Drinking posts coming up: I have free samples of several white whiskeys, some premium vodkas distilled from unusual ingredients, cola vodka, and Snap, a gingersnap-inspired liqueur from the makers of Root.  There's a chance Snap won't be covered until the fall, when I can pair it with apple cider.

Cooking posts coming up: I have that frozen turtle meat that's been in the freezer for months, so I think I will finally make turtle soup soon. Tomato season is finally starting, so tomato pie is coming too.