Current mood:

sick

To shout, to sob, to weep steam
We had our good friends J__ and M__ over to dinner last night, and J__ noted a bottle of Qi black tea liqueur we had sitting on the bar and had to sample it. We mentioned that while we quite liked it (it's actually a pretty darn good lapsang souchang liqueur, not too sweet), we hadn't quite figured out a way to use it in a cocktail that worked. You can't mix it with Scotch, or indeed any of the standard brown liquors. The smokiness is overpowering. I thought I was on to something when I tried creating a variation on a theme of a drink I used to get in Berkeley. Le Bateau Ivre restaurant did a Navy Grog that was just strong black tea with a vial of Stroh Inlander 160 proof rum on the side to mix in. The butterscotch flavor of the Stroh went very nicely with the tea. So, I tried a mix of the Qi and Stroh -- no good. 160 proof rum does not make a good *base* for a cocktail. I tried cutting the proof of the resulting drink down by watering it with vodka (not often you use vodka to water a drink down), and while getting there, it wasn't perfect.

J__ suggested that the rum idea seemed reasonable, but maybe I should try white rum instead of the Stroh. That sounded like a good base, but we decided it needed something else in there, otherwise we're back to drinking liquid smoke. M__ said "citrus goes with tea," and after everyone looked at me like I was from Mars after suggesting maybe lime juice, the concerted opinion of the table was that Cointreau was the way to go.

After some playing about with proportions, here's what we came up with:

1/2 oz Qi black tea liqueur
1 oz Cointreau
3 oz white rum of choice.

Shake. Strain. Garnish with twist of orange peel.

Now it just needed a name. J__, inspired by the name of the liqueur (Qi, pronounced 'chee'), suggested we name it the Hoo Qi Koo Qi. A little exploration with a pinyin-to-ideograph translator today reveals that actually Hu and Ku are valid pinyin expressions. So, we have our official name for the drink. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the Hu Qi Ku Qi.

Unfortunately, we're now stuck trying to work out the most appropriate translation. I think the "Hu" and "Ku" should be first tone (high), and the Qi should be fourth tone (falling), but while that narrows the range of possible meanings for each syllable, it still leaves a lot of room for interpretation. They could each still map to many different Chinese characters. The subject line for this post is about as close as I've gotten to something sensible for a translation. Here are some possible meanings/ideographs for the three syllables used in the name. Feel free to suggest your own preferred translation in comments (translations courtesy of Mandarin Tools:

Hu:

呼 to call; to cry; to shout; to breath out; to exhale
幠 arrogant; rude; to cover
忽 suddenly
惚 indistinct
欻 suddenly
滹 (surname); name of a river
膴 big piece of meat; dried meat
虍 stripes of tiger
虖 exhale; scream of tiger; to call
謼 to shout; to mourn; to invoke

Qi:

亟 repeatedly; frequently
咠 to whisper; to blame, to slander
器 device; tool; utensil
契 contract
妻 to marry off (a daughter)
憩 to rest
栔 carve; cut
棄 or 弃 abandon; relinquish; to discard; to throw away
气 air; anger; gas
氣 or 气 gas; air; smell; weather; vital breath; to make sb. angry; to get angry; to be enraged
汔 near
汽 steam; vapor
泣 to sob
犵 name of a tribe
盵 (surname)
砌 to build by laying bricks or stones
磧 or 碛 moraine; rocks in shallow water
葺 to repair
蟿 (insect); Tryxalis masuta
訖 or 讫 finished
迄 as yet; until
鏚 battle-axe

Ku:

刳 to cut open; rip up; scoop out
哭 to cry; to weep
堀 cave; hole
枯 dried up
骷 skeleton

Actually, now that I think about it, "arrogant insect" isn't a bad start for the name, but I'm not sure what to do with the 'ku qi' that follows that. "dried up battle axe"?

In other news, I am tired of coughing my lungs out every night from this cold. That is all.