Irish Lemonade

I use a tall 12 ounce glass for this; so, the amounts I've given below are for that size glass. You should adjust the ingredient amounts according to the size glass you use, and to suit your own tastes. I generally make my own lemonade. I don't care much for strong sour tastes, and by making my own lemonade, I can easily make it to my own taste preference. Just be sure to get the sugar dissolved completely. 

 

Ingredients: 

 

2 ounces Irish whiskey (Jameson and Bushmills are best known, but there are others)

4 to 5 ounces lemonade (homemade or store bought)

good dash of angostora bitters*

2 ounces club soda (it adds a little 'fizz')

a few ice cubes

fresh mint leaves for garnish

 

In a glass, mix together the Irish whiskey, lemonade, bitters and club soda. Add a few ice cubes and garnish with some fresh leaves. If you want some mint taste in the drink, crush the leaves a little in the palm of your hand, then add them right into the lemonade and stir. 

 

* Angostura bitters is an herb and spice mixture, with an alcohol content, used as a flavoring agent, and invented in the 1820s by a German doctor who was an immigrant to Venezuela. It is made in Trinidad and Tobago.

WORD HISTORY:

Bulge-This word is distantly related to "ball," "bellows," "belly," all words from the Germanic roots of English, to "bale" (bundle, package), a Germanic word absorbed into French from Frankish and borrowed by English from French, and it is more closely related to "budget" and to "bilge," Celtic derived words borrowed by Latin and passed to Latin-based French and then borrowed by English. "Bulge" goes back to Indo European "bhelgh," which had the notion of "swell, inflate, expand in size."

This gave Old Celtic "bulgos/bolgos," meaning "stomach, bag," and this gave Gaulish "bulga(s)," with the same meanings. This then was borrowed into Latin as "bulga," which meant "leather bag, pouch." A leather pouch was used to hold money. Old French, a Latin-based language, inherited the word as "boulge," also with the meaning "leather pouch/bag, often used for money." English borrowed the word circa 1200 as "bulge," and also meaning "leather bag, leather money pouch," but the idea of a money bag filled with money gave the notion of "protuberance," which gradually became the main meaning by the 1600s. The verb form developed in the 1600s and became more common by the latter part of the century.