It's Millar Time

We celebrated Ashley's birthday this weekend with a night of chili, cocktails, and candles. Pardon the alliterative nature of the preceding sentence, but I can't help it that we had all those things in spades. For the shindig, I opted to create a cocktail in honor of the venerable Ms. Millar.

As recently as two years ago, Ashley appreciated fire water or Grandpappy's cough syrup about as much as a teetotaling newborn. Or, you know, about as much as my Mother does. She wasn't into rum, vodka made her roll her eyes, gin caused her to seize up, and whiskey nearly threw her into convulsions. Such is the case with many folks, though I'd hardly know it because I typically shun those philistines to the misty hinterlands of Who Invited THEM To The Party?

All of that changed, however, one fine May day a couple of years ago. As is the Millar tradition, we were flinging our kilts at the annual Scottish Festival when I bound, gagged, and dragged Ashley Ashley and I quite mutually and amicably decided to do a scotch tasting. The first pour happened to be an Islay-style whisky so smokey it tasted like using a piece of burnt drift wood as a tooth pick on the coldest, wettest, saltiest, farthest-flung island in Scotland on the coldest, wettest day of the year. Scotch has never been my thing (more of a bourbon girl, as it were), so you can imagine my surprise when, after taking one sip of her Assault On The Beach, Ashley's eyes grew round and glassy. 

"Oh," she marveled, "This is good!"

One might never have guessed. In honor of her foray into the land of Dram and Honey, I created a scotch-based cocktail for the party that would be palatable even for relative non-drinkers. And because I'm nothing if not secretly obsessed with marrying a Scottish man generous, I'll share the recipe with you.

Hey, yo. It's Millar Time.