The end of each year always brings countdowns or lists of some kind – the top 100 songs are played on the radio, the newspaper offers a recap of the top ten news stories, and film critics issue a list of the year’s most popular films. Zelda for Elders launched our blog in 2021, so we’ve decided that we, too, need a list, to provide a retrospective on last year as we contemplate the new one. This week and next, we review our top 10 cocktails inspired from Legend of Zelda gameplay: five each from Breath of the Wild and Skyward Sword. (To refresh our readers’ memory, we choose cocktails based on a day’s quest or geographical region; read here for more details.)
We note for the record that just last week Difford’s Guide revealed their Top 100 Cocktails of 2021, but we had our idea first. Okay, ahem, maybe Difford’s has been doing their list for years, but we only learned of it recently. We further note that Difford’s bases its list on the most viewed cocktails on its site. We base ours on the most drunk. By us, as it were[1].
Although we did try more than a few cocktails in 2021, unlike Difford’s we did not have 5000 candidates to choose from, nor even 100. (Perhaps if we had started our blog in 2020, we would have had a similar number of drinks to choose from, that year being what it was.) Nonetheless, even with a shallower pool of contenders, we found it hard to narrow the list to just five BOTW cocktails. But winnow we did. NOTE: Our runners-up include the Cava Sangria, Banana Daiquiri, and Picon Punch. If you haven’t already, give them a try, too.
And now, drumroll please, our favorite five cocktails to which we matched Breath of the Wild play . . .
Number 5
Finishing fifth, but only because some drink had to, we have the French 75.[2] This classic cocktail combines gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup, which, after chilling in a shaker, is then strained into a coupe and topped with Champagne. The drink is named after the 75-millimeter artillery cannon used by the French in World War I; accordingly, we indulged in it while battling the cannons atop the Divine Beast Vah Medoh. This may account for Link’s having fallen off Vah Medoh once or twice.
Number 4
In fourth place, we welcome the Lost Bank Martini, so named because (a) it’s our version of a Left Bank martini; and (b) while racing around the Tumlea Heights in our quest to return blue fire to the Akkala Ancient Tech Lab, we got rattled and then lost and mistakenly shot arrows to the opposite (and wrong) bank. For those who have not tried a Lost Bank or Left Bank martini, the drink combines gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, elderflower liqueur, and sauvignon blanc. Come to think of it, the Lost Bank has some similarities to the French 75. Maybe that’s why both made our list.
Number 3
The Pisco Sour claims the bronze medal of our Zelda-inspired cocktails. This delightful libation calls for combining Pisco, lime juice, and simple syrup; shaking with an egg white to create an elegant froth; and dashing bitters on top.
Since Pisco is a type of brandy produced in Chile and Peru, countries which sport impressively high mountains, we enjoyed this drink while assembling the three pieces of Link’s climbing set.
First Runner-Up
Coming in second, but really it might have claimed the top spot, we have the Key Lime Pie Martini. Our 2021 runner-up is a delicious combination of vodka, Licor 43, pineapple juice, half and half, and a light sprinkling of graham cracker dust on top. Since Itzal is gluten-free, ours was more of a Key Lime Crustless Pie Martini, but we didn’t miss the graham crackers one bit, and you won’t either, if you don’t have grahams in the pantry. But you will miss out if you don’t give this one a try. Indeed, although usually we place the cocktail horse after the gameplay cart, in this case we had already tried a Key Lime Pie and loved it; accordingly, we looked for a quest, challenge, or geographical region with which to pair it after the fact. We found the perfect choice in A Home for Link. Key to the house, get it? But even if you don’t build Link’s house, you’ll want to try this cocktail.
Our Number One BOTW Cocktail for 2021
And now, claiming the number one spot in our BOTW-inspired drinks: the humble Mai Tai.[3] It doesn’t have a mysterious name, like the French 75 or the Lost Bank Martini. It doesn’t feature a (somewhat) exotic ingredient like the Pisco Sour. And unlike the Key Lime Pie Martini, it doesn’t taste like a decadent dessert. Why, then, is it our number one? Because the Mai Tai is the sine qua non cocktail of Zelda for Elders. A Mai Tai photo is on our Twitter profile and also on the “Are you of legal drinking age?” query page of our website. One might rightly conclude that we are partial to this concoction of light and dark rum, lime and pineapple juice, orange curaçao and orgeat.
Even before we dreamed up our blog (an idea we also had before Difford’s, although admittedly likely because Difford’s never considered a Zelda-themed cocktail blog), ahem, even before we began blogging, we drank Mai Tais while playing Breath of the Wild. And, one day while tippling this tiki brew, we said, “We oughta have a Zelda blog for oldsters like us,” followed in short order by, “and we should match cocktails to the gameplay.”
With apologies to Dr. Seuss: We drank Mai Tais here, we drank them there, we drank them everywhere. But most particularly and appropriately we drank Mai Tais when exploring Lurelin Village. Thus, we chose this tropical vacation spot in Hyrule for the official Mai Tai pairing. And oh how we miss trips to Lurelin Village as we play other Zelda – and non-Zelda – games. It’s a fine place, paired with a fine cocktail, in our opinion.
Have we mentioned that Demelza, who had to do all the hunting and gathering in BOTW, spent a lot of time discharging her duties in Lurelin Village? Surely she did so because there were plenty of bananas and crabs and mushrooms to gather there. Surely she didn’t nightly crawl underneath the huts in Lurelin because doing so offered an excuse for a Mai Tai.
Surely not.
You can find recipes for all five of our favorite BOTW drinks (and more) by clicking here. Coming next week: Our favorite Skyward Sword cocktails. We may not have cared for that game much, but we did enjoy the drinks we paired with it!
[1] Not that we are, or were, drunk, but rather we refer to the cocktails most often drunk or most enjoyed while drinking. Ahem.
[2] The French 75 finished 40th on Difford’s list. Then again, the Porn Star Martini finished first on their list. How can we trust their list? What kind of person looks up a recipe for a drink called a Porn Star? (Demelza goes to look up. Oh, my. No wonder people look it up.) (Itzal feigns shock and dismay.)
[3] Difford’s refers to the Mai Tai as commonplace! Harrumph. But commonplace or no, we note that a Mai Tai finishes 13th on their list of the 100 most visited recipes of 2021, well before less commonplace drinks.