This vodka, Cointreau, honey, grapefruit and orange cocktail from Portal is the key to ensuring success in all your aperture-related activities.
You’ll need
- 2 oz (60ml) vodka
- 1/2 oz (15ml) Cointreau
- 1/2 oz (15ml) honey simple syrup
- 1 oz (30ml) red grapefruit juice
- 2 oz (60ml) orange juice
Add all ingredients to a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir briefly to chill. Strain into a Collins glass filled with ice and rimmed with blue sugar. Serve!
“The dual portal device should be around here somewhere. Once you find it, we can start testing. Just like old times.”
– GLaDOS, Portal 2
Portal—it was a triumph. Seriously, I’m making a note here: huge success. It was one of those unexpected, out-of-the-blue hits that jumped straight out of the Orange Box and into the best-selling and most-played (not to mention most-loved) lists of gamers all over the world.
The fascinating physics-based mechanics, the amusing characters and the surprisingly gripping story are the things that nearly everybody remembers—but there’s an unsung hero in the Portal franchise that needs its praises shouted: the aesthetic.
Feel like there should be more cocktails with honey in them in the world? Try the Traitor Empress from Sunless Sea.
Just think about it: any time you see that specific orange and blue, surrounded by the sterile white of the lab testing areas, you know you’re looking at Portal.
So, when I was asked by one of the fans (shout out to YouTuber MatrixRetoastet) to make a Portal drink, I knew I had to draw on that distinctive look to really do it justice.
But it’s not just a drink that looks good—it tastes great too. The orange and red grapefruit juice have this wonderful interplay of sweet and sour that the florality of the honey syrup takes full advantage of, while the Cointreau adds this slight orange rind flavour to the drink that takes it from good to great.
All up, you get this lovely sweet-and-sour, orange-and-blue beverage that works as a perfect portal to an equally perfect evening.
Join me in toasting Portal and Valve—cheers to when they still made games!
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