Grand Marnier

One of the places Candace and I like to frequent for late night drinks is this place called Après Diem. It's essentially a laid-back trendy Euro lounge/patio-style restaurant-bar that has a fairly large menu of quality liqueurs. Usually when we're there, we both have glasses of Godiva Caramel on the rocks, but this time I felt like trying something new: Grand Marnier straight. Although I had only had cognacs once or twice before, the description of this one being orangey piqued my curiosity, so I asked for it to be served in the standard fashion (straight, for sipping) and went into it (even past the first few sips) quite positively.

Unfortunately, I ended up hating it within a few minutes, and by the end of the evening, I was drowning it in water to dilute it a bit. Ultimately, I'm just not a big fan of liquor of any sort unless it tastes really good by itself, so I guess I learned my lesson that straight liqueur fits into this category as well. Oh well. Another interesting lesson I learned that evening was that it's "MarNIer" not "MarINer"...For some reason I thought this was a nautical-themed drink all these years... =)