*This week, we were at yet another destination wedding, so our friends, Sarah and Phillip, were kind enough to post for us.  Their post follows.  Enjoy! 

When Ashley asked if we would guest blog for [tag]52 Weeks of Drinks[/tag] this week, initially I was really excited. Who needs to be asked twice to take yourself out for a great dinner and cocktails? But then I realized that neither one of us knows jack about cocktails. Of the two of us, Phillip is less of a cocktail drinker than I am. However, he’s lately been on the search for a sweet, yet manly, cocktail. So, at the very least, this would be a great learning experience for us!

We decided to head to [tag]JCT Kitchen[/tag] on the Westside. We love the atmosphere and super tasty comfort food on the menu. Nearly every dish has pork belly, so how can you go wrong?

Phillip has a major sweet tooth so he ordered the Strawberry Alarm Clock which includes fresh strawberries, lime, chachaca, brown sugar and balsamic sugar on the rocks. It is very pink, served in a high ball glass with a lime garnish – but very manly as you can tell in the photo…

Don’t forget our ratings scale is between 1 and 5 Olives.  One Olive = waste of my blogging time;  5 Olives = oh my goodness/yummmmmm

Here are Phillip’s ratings:

Presentation – 3 olives
Creativity – 3 olives
Taste – 3 olives
Overall – 3 olives   – He’s a middle of the road kind of guy and says that the taste started off well with the strawberry, but ended up with too strong of a liquor taste. Overall, it was a decent, but mediocre and uninspired cocktail.

I tend to like a really fresh and light cocktail, so I ordered the Leaves of Grass, mostly for the ode to Walt Whitman. The cocktail included bison grass vodka, dolin blanc, lemongrass syrup and fresh tarragon, served up. It came in a martini glass, with little garnish. It wasn’t a particularly creative cocktail, but it was really tasty. On a hot afternoon, these went down way too easily!

My ratings are as follows:

Presentation – 3 olives
Creativity – 2 olives
Taste – 5 olives
Overall – 4 olives

Generally, we had a really great dinner experience. We highly recommend the Angry Mussels! I’m not sure I would order cocktails with dinner again, but definitely would sip either of these fine libations on their upper patio after work or a long day (where you can also order the mussels or other snacks). While we didn’t find Phillip’s ultimate cocktail combination, we eliminated a possibility, so hopefully we’re one step closer to the ideal. The search continues…