I follow a UK blogger named Deb. One of the things I find most charming about her writing is the constant use of words and phrases with which I am unfamiliar. She’s writing in English, mind you – but British English, which often differs quite a bit from American English.
Case in point: she left a comment that said, “It’s blowing a hoolie here.” I asked her if a hoolie was like a banshee, and she replied, “In as much as they both howl, yes.”
Alrighty then!
In a recent post, Deb wrote, It’s cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. Which led to the following exchange:
If there’s one thing I’m down for, it’s a blog challenge! Especially one that is measured in proofs. So, I googled “Brass Monkey drink” and found a recipe. Just three simple ingredients: dark rum, vodka, and orange juice, all things I already had on hand. Sounded like a winning combination to me!
So, I mixed up the ingredients and poured my cocktail into a lowball tumbler (’cause we fancy up in here) while naturally listening to the Beastie Boys’ 1986 rap classic of the same name. Which is such a me thing to do: when Tara and I were driving through the Nevada desert on our way to Las Vegas in 2012, endless clusters of Joshua trees littering the landscape as far as the eye could see, our soundtrack was U2’s The Joshua Tree. And while driving through the Badlands on my solo road trip the previous year, I rolled down the window and blasted Bruce Springsteen’s “Badlands.”
I’m about as literal as they get. Guess which song I’m playing if I ever spend one night in Bangkok? Go ahead, guess!
Anyway. Back to the Brass Monkey. It looked great, so I eagerly took my first sip…
…and almost spit it out. What a nasty abomination! Suffice it to say, I did not put my left leg down, my right leg up, tilt my head back, or finish the cup.
Nothing against the Beastie Boys – License To Ill was all the rage in my senior year of high school and a true pioneering rap classic – but this drink wasn’t the least bit ode-worthy IMHO. I certainly couldn’t see drinking it anytime and any place. When it’s time to get ill, I won’t be pouring it on my face.
After sharing the results of my experiment on social media, as one does, I was informed by my friend/realtor Justin that the Brass Monkey I had made was not the Brass Monkey the fellas from NYC were so smitten with. He set me straight on Facebook:
The Brass Monkey Drink that the Beastie Boys are singing about isn’t the cocktail. It’s a 40 Oz of Olde English Malt Liquor with enough of it drank down to add in 4-5 ounces of OJ or Sunny D. It sweetens up the malt liquor just enough to allow you to drink the whole 40 ounces before it gets warm.
First thought: Justin must have been fun to party with in high school! There’s a lot of conflicting info on the internet (imagine that!), but ultimately, the line, “I’ll down a .40 dog in a single gulp / And if you got beef, you’ll get beat to a pulp” convinced me that my friend was, in fact, correct. (And he can sell a house like nobody’s business. Dude’s got game.) Which meant only one thing: I was going to have to do this whole experiment all over again.
I couldn’t find a 40 oz. bottle of Olde English 800, so I had to settle for a 16 oz. can. And I was unable to “drink it down to the label” either because there was no label. I was forced to eyeball the OJ to malt liquor ratio, so maybe this wasn’t an exact recreation, but I figured it was close enough for pseudo-scientific purposes.
Once I had it mixed in the can I was a little afraid to take a sip, given how awful the first attempt was. I closed my eyes and could almost hear the Beasties cheering me on:
“You take a sip, you can do it, you get right to it / We had a case in the place and we went right through it.”
So, I did…and was pleasantly surprised. This Brass Monkey wasn’t half bad! It’s really just a beermosa with a funny name. I mean, it’ll never replace a Bloody Mary or brandy Old Fashioned, but I can see the appeal. Best of all, I can now tell people, “I drink Brass Monkey and I rock well / got a castle in Wisco, that’s where I dwell.”
Next up, I might have to tackle that Gin and Juice Snoop Dogg is so fond of.
Mark My Words 
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