One of the stranger “fruits” you see walking around the Santa Monica Farmer’s Market will be the Buddha’s Hand Citron. Yes, it counts as citrus even though it has no seeds or flesh to speak of. It’s a tale of mostly just oils and pith here which makes for a head scratching moment…What to do with this and why buy it at all? Just one of these was $21…Yeah, not so cheap for something that appears to have no real use or nutritional value…But wait…It does have some serious output in the form of its natural perfume. The Buddha’s hand is very very very fragrant. It’s like a mutated lemon on Dianabol.

Strange name actually…And if I can get real deep on the conspiracy theory side here I’d say “Why Buddha’s Hand? Was he some sort of pre-historic Cthulhu demi-god before he was fully embraced by the the world as some kinder, gentler teacher of the Tao? Maybe he wrote the Koran, Bhagavad Gita, and the Old and New Testaments with those tentacles, eh? Maybe it’s still lurking around somewhere in the fifth dimension waiting to rise and enslave us all?”

If you’re old enough, you probably remember the good old Absolut Citron and if you’re really old you probably knew someone that collected these ads back in the day and pasted them on their dorm room wall (I did).

There were a ton of these ads in magazines back in the day and consequently, everyone drank this shit. I don’t know if it counts as good vodka at all because I could give a rat’s ass about vodka but I do know that most companies who spend all their money on advertising and fancy bottles usually put out a shit product (math) because they spend their money on everything but the product itself…Note to the consumer…If you see something everywhere it’s because there’s a marketing machine behind it, it’s mass produced, and it’s not good (most of the time).

Anyway, there was a heyday of all these infused vodkas in the 90s and early 2000s before good cocktails became mainstream once again…I may or may not be guilty for enjoying a Stoli Raspberry and soda on occasion…Every so often some jackass does come in and order an Absolut Citron and soda or something akin but it’s fairly few and far between these days. People have even stopped asking for Tito’s as often as they used to. I even think vodka may now play second fiddle to bourbon.

The regular old citron itself is an odd duck and does have some resemblance to a common lemon because, unlike the Buddha’s Hand, it has some juicy goodness deep within the pith. The biggest takeaway here is that the fragrance is otherworldly. Visualize whirled peas.

But to bring it all back, infusion is best with one of these puppies. Most years we’ll soak it into pisco for one of our staple drinks:

The Vesper of Total Enlightenment

1.5 oz. London Dry Gin

1 oz. Buddha’s Hand Infused Pisco

.5 oz. Cocchi Americano

2 Dashes RC Tangerine Bitters

Stir, yada yada, small coupe, lemon peel garnish.

This year I went a different route:

Yeah…The stuff only the top tier Molotov Cocktails can dream of (has anyone called a cocktail The Molotov?).

And there’s my little blonde baby up there with all the other crap that’s been spilling out of the bar. Yes, we’re small but mighty but it also means we need a lot more shelf space to put all these ideas. I hope someone comes in and thinks we put a dyed squid inside a jar. Yes, there is a label. I faced it the other way because it’s a surprise…