Wine – awkward vodka

Gift Guide for the Night-Life Loving Girl on Your List

Haven’t gotten a Christmas gift for your drunk bestie yet? No worries. The ladies at Awkward Vodka have got you covered. The lush in your life is sure to love any of the below products…

Hakuna Some Vodka Workout Shirt

This shirt is #1 on the list for a reason – it’s awesome. Buy here.

Wine Glass Socks

How cute are these? They’re affordable and adorable, perfect for your wine-loving Secret Santa. Buy here.

Lipstain

ColorStay Just Bitten Lipstain + Balm is a must-have item for any nighttime purse. You only have to put it on once, and your lips will look great all evening. Buy here.

Hydro Flask Insulated Stainless Steel Wide Mouth Water Bottle and Beer Growler

For the girl who’s not feeling like downing liquor on a night out, try the trusty beer flask water bottle. Double wall vacuum insulation keeps beer and water cold for up to 24 hours and hot for up to 12 hours. Buy here.

Everpurse

There is nothing worse than your phone dying when you’re out on the town trying to meet up with friends. Everpurse charges your phone on the go, so you don’t have to worry about being stranded and disconnected. Buy here.

Urban Decay Eye Make Up Primer

I was introduced to the Urban Decay Primer a couple months ago, and it changed my life. It guarantees more vibrant eyeshadow that lasts for 24 hours and never creases! I love it. Buy here.

Flask Bangle

If you’re still trying to decide what to get me, this is it. A flask bangle! It’s super cute and holds 3 oz. of liquor. Only negative? The price. It’s $225.00. But did I mention it’s cute and holds liquor? Buy here.

Scotch Nails – Nail Polish

Scotch Naturals is a safe and eco-friendly alternative to conventional polish. Colors are creatively named things like Hot Toddy and Smokey Martini. Buy here.

Lipstick Flask

If you’re like us, you’re always trying to figure out new, creative ways to sneak alcohol into events – sporting events, concerts and even the bar. The lipstick flask is the perfect way to do that! Buy here.

Wisconsin-Shaped Cutting Board

If you’re girlfriend loves hosting wine & cheese nights (and Wisconsin), she’ll love the Wisconsin-shaped cutting board. I’m sure they make them for other states, but, let’s be honest, we love Wisconsin. Buy here.

Top 10 Guilty Pleasures

1. One Direction. Or any pop star targeting tweens. Especially if they have a fantastic 3D movie.

2. Food Made for Kids. Chicken Nuggets, Corn Dogs, Spaghettios, Fish Sticks.

3. Watching the Same TV Shows Over & Over. Friends. Friday Night Lights. One Tree Hill.

4. Lifetime or ABC Family Movies. All of them.

5. Eating the Salt out of the Bottom of the Bag of Popcorn. It’s really disgusting, but I can’t help it. It’s extra delicious when it’s full of butter.

6. Leggings as Pants. Super comfortable.

7. Eating Deli Meat Plain. Ham or Turkey.

8. Boxed Wine. Chillable Red. Yum.

9. BOGO. I’ve spent so much money on things I don’t need just because they’re on BOGO.

10. Soft Pretzels from a Bar. I don’t even have to be hungry, but if I go to a bar that’s known for delicious soft pretzels, I’ll order them.

Life Beyond Vodka

Vodka is clearly my drink of choice. However – during my recent 10 day drinking bender – I drank out of my comfort zone, enjoying beergaritas, Irish Coffees and a number of different wines. Here are some of my favorite new recipes that – gasp!! – don’t include vodka:

Beergaritas – Since I was too busy binge drinking this weekend to actually write a post leading up to Cinco De Mayo, a post-Cinco De Mayo post highlighting my favorite drink of the evening will have to suffice. To make this delicious concoction you mix:

1 can of Limeade (we found it at Target)
1 can of Sprite Zero
1 can of tequila
1 light beer

Sounds weird, but it’s super delicious. This will definitely be a must-have drink this summer

Irish Coffees – Not a huge fan of drinking coffee black or of whiskey, but the two together make a yummy drink.

Hot Coffee
1 shot of Irish Whiskey
A cube of sugar
Topped with thick whipped cream

I only wish I could drink these coffees every morning…

WINE – I love wine. I’ve gotten a new appreciation for it, although I’m still really cheap, so you have to balance taste with cost. Three of my favorites:

Dancing Bull Red Zinfandel
Yellow Tail Sweet Red
Grgich Cabernet Sauvignon

The Grgich is a little more pricey, but it was really good!

It feels wrong to even talk about another liquor besides vodka on our blog, but what’s your fave non-vodka drink?

Wine Country Vaca

If you’ve never been to northern California, plan a trip now. I was there last weekend for my cousin’s wedding in Napa, and it was a weekend full of delicious food, family time and an excessive amount of wine. Here’s my little weekend recap:

Friday

We arrived in San Fran around noon so we were able to check into our hotel and explore most of the afternoon. My mom, Aunt and I had delicious seafood at a restaurant at the Warf, while my dad and BF opted for In and Out Burger. Although I love burgers, I was naive on the first day of vaca and believed I could survive the weekend without over eating so I skipped In and Out. But don’t worry, it was eaten later in the weekend at about 1:00 a.m. after gulping down gallons of wine.

Friday Highlight: Going to The Buena Vista Cafe and drinking Irish Coffees. Irish coffees have like cream, coffee and whiskey in them – I think. Delicious! This is a must-go if you ever go to San Fran.

Saturday

In the morning, we took a long walk to my cousin’s apartment – about 2.5 miles away – through Little Italy. It was a nice walk, cool outside. Lots of hills. We had a delicious breakfast at a cafe in Little Italy – yum! Saturday afternoon we headed to Napa for the first time for wine tasting and a welcome dinner for my cousin’s wedding. It was so great checking out some fun vineyards and catching up with family I haven’t seen in years.

Saturday Highlight: We were driving through Napa, taking in the gorgeous sites and trying to decide on which vineyard we wanted to check out. We started driving past the Menage a Trois vineyard and my mom pulled a U-turn faster than I’ve ever seen anyone turn around. It’s one of her fave wines in Wisconsin, so she had to go to a wine tasting of it in Napa. Weird, right? So we paid $5 to taste a tiny sample of three wines when a bottle usually costs about $5 in Wisco…

Sunday

On Sunday we woke up full of regret after binge eating In and Out burger on Saturday night, so our walk was extra long in the morning. Once recovered from the night before, we got dolled up for my cousin’s wedding and headed back to Napa. On the way to the wedding we obviously stopped at two vineyards because, well, why not? We then made our way to Yountville for the wedding.

Sunday Highlight: Obviously my cousin’s wedding. It was gorgeous and so much fun. She looked amazing and the whole wedding was beautiful. Kristine & Mark, my cousin and her new husband, met in San Francisco so there was a lot of sentimental value in getting married at a vineyard there. The night was full of dancing, drinking, taking shots of Grey Goose – or GG 😉 – for my other cousin’s 21st birthday and playing with the fancy electronic bathrooms.

Monday

Monday was rough. We attempted to go for a walk, but ended up eating a huge breakfast at the Hollywood Cafe instead. We then spent the day biking around San Francisco, over the Golden Gate Bridge and in Sausalito. At night we had another huge meal at the Warf and my aunt and I shared a huge, unnecessary fishbowl full of liquor.

Monday Highlight: Biking over the Golden Gate Bridge was amazing! I got a horrible sunburn, but it was totally worth it. The view is amazing. It took us about 3 hours to make the trek across the bridge to Sausalito, but it flew by. The only bad part was making it up the hills – so many hills. But we were rewarded with fish tacos and yummy Sangria in Sausalito.

The whole trip was awesome. I’m a little bit in love with northern California right now and need to go back. If you ever get a chance, go!

Just a Typical Wednesday Night…

Ever have one of those nights you just don’t want to be responsible?

Well, that was last night for us girls at Awkward Vodka. But that really wasn’t our intention at all. Our plan was to go for a walk – Happy (late) National Walking Day, friends – and then go check out the movie Spring Breakers. Sounds like a nice low-key night, right? We started the evening off with a walk – win! But after that is when things started to downward spiral… We has plans to meet our friend S over at Whole Foods to grab dinner at the salad bar because sometimes we pretend to be healthy. And they have the best salad bar in town, hands down.

While waiting for S, we decided to stop over at the Liquor store because… why not? It has been a long week and everyone deserves a glass of wine, especially after an intense walk around the lake.

Did you know they made wine juice boxes? They do! Introducing Bandit wine. Is it amazingly delicious? Mmm not really. It’s ok. But look how convenient? It looks just like that coconut water you can buy in mini boxes, but is way better because it’s alcoholic – duh. And guess what? Whole Foods sells that coconut water – so if we ended up bringing them with us to the store, no one would notice, right? Next think you know, we’re buying three of them and heading over to the salad bar.

After filling our salad containers to the brim, we sat in the eating area of grocery store surrounded by people, stealthily drinking our juice boxes and eating our yummy salads. See the awesome photo below documenting our delicious BYOB dinner? And please note the amazing Katniss braid in the background.

After slamming our “juice boxes” and salads, S realized she left her wallet at work. Our next planned course of action was to go play darts, so before that we had to stop back at the office pick up her forgotten wallet.

While there, we obviously had to leave notes and “really difficult” scavenger hunts for everyone with office supplies – you’re welcome, girls. We hung out for a bit before realizing this is the last place we want to be after work hours so we left…not before stealing some yummy candy from the candy jar and dropping off our spare change in the Monocle Fund of course!

The time was creeping closer to our normal 9:00 p.m. bedtime, but by now we were feeling rebellious so instead of darts, we went to check out a new bar in Uptown Minneapolis – Morrissey’s Irish Pub. I’m cautiously optimistic this place could be a new Cowboy Slims (RIP). My only concern is that it doesn’t seem like the type of place to place country music… However, they did have delicious Vodka Diet Cokes – YUM!

So takeaways from #WastedWednesday:

Buy Bandit wine. It tastes ok, is fairly cheap and can easily hide in your purse.
Avoid work after hours. It’s fun for about 5 minutes and then gets sad and boring.
If you live in the Minneapolis area, check out Morrissey’s Irish Pub in Uptown on Lake St.

Hope you also had a fabulous Wednesday evening!