Hawaiian Screwdriver
Occasionally, over brunch, a Screwdriver fits the bill perfectly. Orange and booze to start the day — who doesn’t like that? Though, when a tropical urge hits, I’ve been known to want something a little different, something with a little more sway in its style. Something much like the Hawaiian Screwdriver!
This year, Alice challenged me — well, us — to a reading challenge. It’s quite a list of book descriptions to read. Things like “something with a blue cover” or “something coming out as a movie this year.” However, the one that really gave me pause was “a book on Oprah’s reading list.”
Being a guy, I was suspicious of anything that Oprah might deem as worthwhile reading. After browsing through her book club selections, I was pleasantly surprised that some of them were classics and some not too horrible. (And yeah, some were as I’d feared, but I opted not to concern myself with those.)
However, picking one wasn’t easy, so I finally settled on “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.” I figured I like hiking (I’m hiking Mount Whitney this year, have a weeklong camping trip every summer in Yosemite), so it shouldn’t be too much of a slog to get through the book.
Turns out it wasn’t — I enjoyed the hiking bits of the book. The more personal stuff, well, that wasn’t really to my taste, but it didn’t detract from the great hiking books.
There’s a scene where our main character, Cheryl, happens upon some friendly folks who invite her to hang out at the end of one of her long days of hiking and offer her a drink called a Hawaiian Screwdriver. Upon reading that, you know I had to make one.
That’s what we call life imitating art imitating life. Bonus points for the book being autobiographical so it’s really art imitating life imitating art — but let’s not get too caught up in the details.
Would I recommend you knocking a cocktail or three back before hiking? Nah, but I doubt Cheryl would either. However, at the end of a hard day of hiking? You earned that drink!
Now, if you’re ready to celebrate your morning or a hard day’s hike, then yes, you too have earned a Hawaiian Screwdriver!
- 2 oz. vodka
- 1 oz. OJ
- 4 oz. pineapple juice
- Pineapple wedges
- Cherries
- Glass type: old fashioned
- Add your vodka, OJ and pineapple juice to your shaker with ice.
- Shake.
- Or feel free to stir them if you really wanna, but that's less awesome.
- Either way you do it, just don't do it directly in your final glass.
- That's gauche.
- We don't want that.
- When you're done, pour it into your final glass.
- Garnish with pineapples and cherries.
- Now we're talking tropical.