Picture of the Day: Happy St. Patrick’s Day from Amanda!

We featured this red-haired beauty several years ago near St. Patrick’s Day, so enjoyt this photo and much more of Amanda Neal. You can also see another photo shoot of Amanda here and more redheads here.

Happy St. Patrick's Day from Amanda!

  

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Amanda Neal in a Bullz-Eye T-shirt

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Just in time for St. Patrick's Day we have our lovely redhead we introduced for the holiday back in 2010. Amanda Neal returns for a Blast from the Past shoot sporting a Bullz-Eye T-Shirt which she then proceeds to take off for some spectacular implied photos. Amanda even has some green highlights in her pretty red hair, and as you can see she's added some new tattoos as well. Look for more photos from this curvy Girl Next Door as we have a set with her posing next to a motorcycle as well.

  

Drink of the Week: The Emerald

The EmeraldSay what you will about me, I am a man of peace. That is why I come to you, this St. Patrick’s Day eve, with a small suggestion. If you should, for some reason, find yourself at an actual Irish bar or pub tomorrow night, please resist the urge to order two drinks, which I will now name.

Now, I actually very much like the beverage we in the States and in England call the Black and Tan, which combines Guinness stout with Bass or another pale ale. It’s sort of the cappuccino of beer. However, as Ben and Jerry found out a a few years back, the name is pretty much the equivalent of naming a Jewish deli sandwich a Marauding Cossack. You see, just as the Cossacks weren’t known for their kindness to Russian Jews, the English Black and Tan militia men were not known for their gentleness to Irish folks during the nation’s war of independence from the British, circa 1920-22. As for the drink known as an Irish Car Bomb, let’s just leave that one alone.

Instead, may we suggest this really very nice little beverage named for the Emerald Isle. Yes, knowledgeable readers will notice a more than slight similarity with a far better known classic cocktail, but that will only make it easier to order if your barman is not familiar — and he likely won’t be.

The Emerald

2 ounces Irish whiskey
1 ounce sweet vermouth
1-3 dashes orange bitters
1 maraschino cherry (very optional garnish)

Combine whiskey, vermouth, and bitters in a cocktail shaker. Shake or stir, as is your preference, into a chilled martini/cocktail glass. Toast, preferably while listening to the Pogues, the Chieftains, the Dubliners, or Van Morrison.

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Now, yes, this is pretty obviously a slight variation on a Manhattan, but the Irish whiskey makes for a drink that goes down as easy as watching John Ford’s “The Quiet Man” on a Sunday afternoon and ordering this non-offensive drink will avoid any situations out of “The Wind that Shakes the Barley.”

As I alluded to above, it’s also a pretty obscure drink. Indeed, every recipe I could find online seems to come pretty directly from, Esquire‘s David Wondrich who, I promise, won’t be mentioned next week for a change. It’s worth noting, however, that he points out the use of orange bitters is also potentially controversial, if you know a little Irish history. I do think, however, your bartender will charitably assume you mean orange fruit and not Orangemen when you request a Manhattan made with Irish whiskey and Regan‘s Orange Bitters.

And now, some music to drink the Emerald by.

  

Your 2011 St. Patrick’s Day Playlist

Ah, St. Patrick’s Day, where everyone is Irish for a day. March seems to be full of days like that, since Fat Tuesday is the day where everyone is Catholic for a day.

Since we know many of you will be getting a full-fledged drink on this St. Paddy’s Day, especially since it is also the first day of the NCAA tournament, we have provided a small list of songs about drinking, the effects of drinking, and the vow that many of you will make the following morning. Think of it as the bender that you never took; we love booze as much as the next guys, but sometimes those things are better lived vicariously.

“It’s Time to Party,” Andrew W.K.

With a whopping three songs about partying on his debut album, Andrew W.K. will forever remain our master of ceremonies when it comes to partying. Until we saw the grammar-challenged lyric video, though, we didn’t know this song made a reference to a money shot. Yikes.

“Have a Drink on Me,” AC/DC

The night is young. Everyone is flush with cash and feeling generous. Try and remember this moment when 1:30 rolls around and you’re buying Natural Light pounders. For now, though, you’re living on the top shelf.


Read the rest after the jump...

Getting ready for St. Patrick’s Day

Amanda Neal Irish Model St. Patrick's Day

What better to get you in the mood for a day of drinking on St. Patrick’s Day than a photo of a beautiful Irish model with green eyes and strawberry blonde hair – our very own Amanda Neal. She got into the spirit in her photo shoot with plenty of green St. Patrick’s Day gear, and we expect you’ll run into plenty of Irish hotties like Amanda who will get friendlier by the hour as they drink up more beer on this excellent holiday.

Speaking of beer, many of you will be drinking up plenty of Guinness, but our beer expert Mike Barkacs has another Irish beer suggestion for your drinking pleasure – Murphy’s Stout.

St. Patrick’s Day seems to be a problem for many people. Well, it’s become a problem for me anyway. On that day, I can’t seem to stand at a bar more than five minutes without some stumbling amateur falling into me, sloshing my drink and soaking me with theirs. Otherwise fairly normal people, albeit dressed in garish and silly clothing, take to whooping and hollering for no apparent reason, morning, noon and night. Almost all bar conversations devolve into slurred professions of either undying love or spluttering demands to step outside. It’s Saturday night with all the good bits removed. What is the perfect beverage for this happy and festive occasion? Murphy’s Stout works on just about every level.

On this, of all days, something mistakenly Irish is actually most appropriate. Sure, there’s always the ubiquitous black stuff that everyone else will be having, but that may be a tad too genuine. Guinness is fine, but save that for all the other days of the year. Murphy’s looks the part of a popular Irish beer, even though it’s not made in Cork anymore. It’s black with a tan head — what else do you want? It might be a tad creamier than its more famous cousin, but you’d be hard pressed to spot a difference between the two by sight alone. So, like the rest of the revelers, it will easily pass for Irish just this once. Even if it is now made in, well, England. Birthplace of St. Patrick himself.

Of course, you don’t have to drink Irish beer on this Irish holiday, so feel free to check out Mike’s other beer reviews for other options.