Given what I've read concerning your characters, I feel you're being let off a bit easy by being forced into bartending for an evening... O-oh, s-sorry! That was not meant to give Rhelki any further ideas!

Don't worry, Kaj; even if it does get worse, things can only go up after you hit rock bottom!

Drinking's not really my thing, but that Greg's Nog does look a bit tempting...

Thanks for faving and reading this over.

Yeah, overall I probably was left off pretty easy...

I'll be honest, I almost just abandoned this one since it seems like a lot of people in my audience don't actually drink and I'm not sure the ones that do are into making their own cocktails like I do. Plus it ended up being rather self-indulgent and full of self-deprecating humor that I worry I'd be the only one to find amusing at all. I think if it wasn't for the scene with Kaj and the idea of Paula half-morphing out of Rhelki's dress like that I don't think it would have survived.

And yes, the Greg's Nog is quite good. You could probably replace all of the Luxardo Maraschino liqueur with more sugar. It wouldn't be as good, but it'd still be tasty. And you might want to check out the YouTube vid I linked from that. In it he goes through a ton of store bought eggnogs and tries them (a lot are pretty nasty).

Don't worry, you're allowed to engage in some self-indulgence around the holidays. :)

I enjoy me some booze and will sometimes mix drinks around Christmas/New Year's. Though your cocktails are rather heavy for my own tastes, what with all the eggs and stout and heavy cream. with the possible exception of Sentimental Gentleman.

The stuff I've mixed while hosting tended to be lighter, sweeter, and fruitier, with various brightly colored liqueurs to keep people in the festive mood.

I would actually consider the Sentimental Gentleman to be one of the heavier ones personally. Though I guess it depends what you mean because to me something that spirit forward is quite the strong heavy drink.

Maybe it's just how I describe it because the egg white I find actually makes the drink lighter with an interesting fluffy texture to it. Which is why the Elk's Own was my "lighter" cocktail for the batch. Obviously the eggnog with the entire yolk plus more whole milk is super heavy... but well it's a holiday classic so I left it there.

I really do love mixing up cocktails though and have so many so I kind of wanted to only select which actually seemed more winter and holiday drinks... which tended to be a bit on the heavier side. If I was to include one more, it'd be the Jack Rose, but I felt like I was kind of stretching it already. That did almost take the place of the Elk's Own though. And I decided not to pull in the New Years ones with stuff like a champagne cocktail and a French 75.

Now I'm curious what drinks you tend to mix up for others?

I'm differentiating "strong" and "heavy" because alcohol with eggs or cream is something more likely to upset my stomach than the straighter stuff. Obviously overindulging in spirits will upset anyone's stomach eventually but I don't let myself get to that point. Not since a prior bad experience anyway...

In warm weather I usually make mojitos since I grow my own mint . Perhaps a margarita of some kind if I feel like it.

As for holiday drinks, in previous years I've made a "Grinch" which is simply Midori, Sprite and rum. This year I'm more into a Jack Frost with blue curaçao, coconut rum, pineapple juice, and a peppermint thrown in.

Basically I've only ever mixed up sweeter, more "tropical" drinks. Someone else made me a Kir Royale for New Year's once. It was very good...

Kir Royale's are quite good. I do like them though presently lack the ingredients to do so.

I do agree with Mojitos and Margarita's being good in warm weather and if this was a summer list I'd probably have a lot more stuff like that. In that vein if you haven't had a Queen's Park Swizzle before, I'd highly recommend it. It's kind of like an upgraded Mojito.

I'll be honest, your other two drinks seem a bit too sweet for me. I'd much rather have something balanced with a little citrus juice for fruity drinks. Or do what I most often go for which is strong and boozy stirred cocktails.

Really, I usually only pull out the stuff with eggs and cream at this time of year and I usually only drink one of them in a night, but I can easily see getting quite sick indulging in more then one or two in a night.

Understandable, like with your eggnogs, I only really break out such sugary drinks around the holidays.

The Queen Park Swizzle does look like something I should try making. Thanks for the recommendation!

Nothing wrong with a little self-indulgence, if you enjoy writing it people will enjoy reading it, I certainly did, a fun story!

Glad to see Rhelki has forgiven Paula for her little misunderstanding ;) Though poor Kaj is probably going to get it at some point, still richly deserved!

I've never tried an eggnog before, it's not really thing here, though it does sound nice.

"everyone keeps saying how mean you are"

They do?!? Well I guess you're own characters might have such an opinion on the matter, though I haven't seen you put them through anything too awful so far ;)

Also do they remember their time at the bar? Or is it like a half-remembered dream when they return to their own stories?

"A large buff while lion"

White lion I guess ;) Actually I'm interested to read about his and Felix's relationship, it sounds quite awkward and complicated.

I'll be honest, I've never had the store bought eggnogs that I'm guessing most people are used to. I just didn't grow up with them. It wasn't until I learned this more old school way of making them that I gave it a try and found it quite good. Very thick and heavy though.

I always joke to myself that I'm torturing my characters, but I guess I'm not that mean to them most of the time... except for Howard. I was pretty mean to him.

This all has to remain strictly in the realm of non-cannon otherwise *censored* would *heavy story spoilers*.

I need to finish rewriting and filling in all of the gaps to get there, but I can't wait to push forward more with Felix's relationship silliness. There's a lot of setup I need to add to push it into peak awkwardness.

I have to give one a try if I ever get a chance, and poor Howard!

heh I see, and that should be a fun read ;)