Pickle parties

There are so many reasons to have a pickle party.  As I have mentioned before, my neighbor Kevin, makes a good pickle.  This year, all of our neighbors got together and pickled together.  Now whenever the neighbors get together we usually open a jar or two of the ones we have made.  This week we opened some of Steve and Kathy's.  It is official, of all the jars we pickled this year, Kathy's were the yummiest.  She better be careful or I might raid her garage in the middle of the night.

Here is Steve with this year's best jar!

As some of you may know, my birthday just past.  We celebrated with the neighbors and had a great time!  We also cracked open pickles that we had mixed with different types of alcohol.  I would say for the most part, it was an experiment that had gone terribly, terribly wrong.  Here is the breakdown:

Whiskey-This was one of the better ones.  They were really spicy and I couldn't tell if it was Whiskey burn or if it was because we put peppers in with the Whiskey.  When we first opened these, I could get through a whole pickles, but I wouldn't really say I ENJOYED them.  At that point, I didn't know it would get worse...MUCH  WORSE.

Tequila pickles-Not good.  One bite and that is all I could stomach.  At this point people started shying away from try anymore.

Mike's Hard Lemonade (Pomegranate Flavor)-I was hoping that this would taste like Kool aid pickles.  Sweet and Salty all mixing together in a wonderful medley.  Sadly, this was not the case and people actually started spitting out their bites.

Beer-This was surprisingly good.  Honestly, I think there was enough brine in this batch you couldn't really notice the beer flavor.  I would actually try this pickle again.

Vodka-HORRIBLE.  I don't think we put any brine in this, just vodka and the cucumber.  This does not work as well as infusing a watermelon with vodka.  It did not have a pleasant taste unless you like straight vodka and are expecting to taste straight vodka.  I will say that this was the most disappointing for me since I have had dill  infused vodka with pickles as a chaser that that was delicious!

Finally we had a jar called GOLF.  We suspect, although no one really could remember, that this was a "suicide" type drink.   We mixed a bunch together.  I will say this fell somewhere between the Vodka and the Mike's Hard which put it in the more horrible than less horrible category.  

All in all, if you are going to pickle with alcoholic beverages I would give you the following tips:

1.  Have a plan

2.  Measure and label so you know how much of what is in each jar!

3.  Use at least some brine, otherwise it is an infused cucumber

4.  Don't do it.  :)

At any rate, terrible pickles that made me sick all the next day or not, I had a great birthday!