TWO THUMBS UP!

Capital letters, exclamation point, the whole bit. You should make this cocktail recipe. Except you should make it the way I made it, because it was really, really good.

You need brandy, cider, orange bitters, and Cava. Here's how it goes in our house:

Brandy=Christian Brothers

Cider= Freshly pressed thanks to Alyssa and her dad (thanks, Alyssa and her dad!).

Orange Bitters= Fee Brothers (what's with all the brothers going into intoxicating beverages?)

Cava= Juve y Camps

Now you need your Awesome Cocktail Shaker. Into which you put one shot of brandy, one shot of cider, and a couple of shakes of the bitters.

Or, if you're us, you actually do two shots each of brandy and cider and several shakes of bitters, because what's the point in a tiny drink? None. That's right.

Then you add ice and shake that Awesome Cocktail Shaker until frost forms on the side and you get kind of tired of shaking. That's how you know it's cold enough. Then you pour that through the little holes of your Awesome Cocktail Shaker into your glass, and then top it off with the Cava. It's supposed to be a Champagne glass, but we just used wine glasses because the Champagne glasses are safely stored in the attic. You can add the Cava to taste--if you make a double like I did, you just add the Cava until the glass is pretty full.

What this makes is a not-too-sweet, bubbly, very refreshing, and quite delicious beverage. Also sort of intoxicating.

Not that I would know anything about that last part. Ahem.

If you like it sweeter, you can add the suggested sugar cube to the bottom of your glass before you fill it up, but we found it definitely unnecessary.

And last, the name. We get to name this version, since we didn't use the apple brandy or sugar cube AND we used our OWN cider. The name was suggested by A., who knows quite a bit more Spanish than he speaks. Since we used Cava--basically the Spanish version of Champagne--a Spanish name seemed appropriate. And so A. christened this cocktail Manzanita de Piedra Negra. That is, Blackrock Apple. Seems pretty reasonable, right?

Right. Now go make a cocktail. Forget that it's Monday. Monday is the new Friday. So happy Friday, duckies! Cocktails for all.