How to Dilute a Beverage to a Desired Percentage

Hey fellow math & science geeks! Want to do some double-checking? Get your lush-ous thinking caps on!

I’m trying to figure out how much liquid mixer I’d need to mix with one shot of 80 proof liquor to make the ending beverage equivalent to a girly malt beverage or a beer.

As someone who prefers cocktails to wine or beer, a strong drink is great, but sometimes it knocks me off my ass a little too quickly. I’ve also got a pretty low alcohol tolerance, so even when drinking beers with buddies, I tend to be the first one catching a buzz. Off of the first beer. Heh, lightweight. (And it makes drinking that boot of bier on my birthday all the more impressive!)
I also tend to drink whatever’s in front of me at a pretty quick clip, even when sipping. One of my girlfriends is the complete opposite and can take a long time to finish any beverage in front of her, be it beer or soda.
Combine a strong drink and a quick drinker, and that’s a recipe for getting drunk pretty quickly! And believe it or not, there are times I don’t feel like getting completely snookered in the blink of an eye. (I mean it’s rare, but still… it happens)

Essentially: How many ounces of mixer do I need for 1.5 oz of liquor at 40% to get the entire solution down to 5% alcohol by volume?

One shot = 1.5 oz
80 proof = 40% alcohol by volume

Since I have a small but strong solution, I can dilute it to a weaker, larger solution using the Dilution Calculation:

C1*V1=C2*V2

C = Concentration V = Volume

My initial concentration is .40 alcohol (or 40%), so C1 = .4

My initial volume is 1.5 oz, so V1 = 1.5 oz

My desired concentration is .05 (or 5%), so C2 = .05.

My desired volume is what we are trying to figure out, so V2 =?

I’ll switch the dilution formula around to meet my needs:

V2 = (C1*V1)/C2

V2 = (.40 * 1.5 oz)/.05

V2 = 12 oz

Now math lovers, if I’m thinking correctly, V2 is going to be my TOTAL ending volume, so my mixer will actually be 12 oz – 1.5 oz = 10.5 oz of mixer since I’ll want to account for the initial 1.5 oz shot in the drink.

Through the glorious power of math and science, it looks like I will need 10.5 oz of non-alcoholic mixer added to my 1.5 oz of rum, vodka, gin, or what have you to make an easy-to-drink 5% solution.

Ah, my high school chem teacher Doc would be proud. Maybe. Well, he'd at least hit your desk really hard with his yard stick, and oh how I wish that were a euphemism for something more risqué.

Bday Gifts from Alb John

Uh, this might be a more expensive birthday than I originally thought… I seem to have uh, misplaced my camera at some point this weekend. So if you see a little pink Nikon somewhere in the Capital District, let me know. I think it’s a Nikon… well, it’s small and pink and you turn it on by moving the cover.

Thankfully Albany John had the wherewithal to take out the memory card after Wolff’s and put a new one in, so I didn’t lose any pictures, which is what I really am thankful for. Here’s one of the last ones I took… pictures of the presents Albany John got me for my birthday (not including the big one of driving my annoying ass around all night).


On the left is a loaf of bread from The Placid Baker, the new bakery that opened up in Troy, NY. HOLY COW. This is excellent bread. I think it was an olive oil bread, and the herbs on top were great. It was very chewy, even the crust was chewy, all of it in a very good way. Just don’t try to eat half of it, or I guarantee you will get jaw fatigue. It was easy to tear hunks off of without squishing the bread or hunk beyond recognition. I mean, c’mon. Isn’t tearing bread one of the best ways to eat it or not? GO GET BREAD FROM THE PLACID BAKER.



The pink heart thing is a jewelry box. This puppy had a “Made In China” sticker on it that did NOT want to come off and took some of the fabric with it. Jeesh, we got it – you were made in China. Now off, sticker!


And the bottom is a WHITE CHOCOLATE cookbook! As you all know, I really don’t care for chocolate, the real kind. With cocoa in it. It’s ok, but I won’t ever order a dessert like super-chocolate-orgasm-lava or whatever they name these choco-fied desserts in restaurants nowadays. There’s even a German White Chocolate cake I really think I’m going to have to try out. The picture on the cover is pears poached in riesling with white chocolate ganache. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that it is on. Until the break of dawn.

So until my camera turns up (keep your fingers crossed, but ultimately I'm not holding my breath), Albany John is going to let me figure out how to use his incredibly fancy camera, and I am going to hope I don't break it. At least it's so big I know I won't misplace it!

Wolff's Biergarten

I went to Wolff’s Biergarten this weekend to celebrate my birthday. What a great time I had! There’s a nice and diverse crowd and so many of my friends came out to spend time with me!

For your birthday, you give the nice bartenders your ID and a credit card to cover the boot in case your clumsy ass breaks it ($40). You can check this post out on owner Matt Baumgartner's TU blog about the boots and such. (PS - it's a cool blog so read it if you haven't) Thankfully mine did not! And I even managed to drink all of the bier. The beer/bier served is the house (haus?) bier. It was a little lemony/hoppy for me, but it was light tasting which I enjoyed. Albany John had a half liter of Octoberfest, which was surprisingly light even though it was darker colored.

Albany John scootched his man-hand in this picture for size reference.

Here is when I went from "Pshhh, this is going to be so easy," to “Woah, I am starting to feel kind of full…” Thankfully I had lots of friends there to chat and hang with while I took my sweet time drinking it. In no particular order: Life of My Mouth and her boy, Joe & Norah, CelinaBean(!!), Ellsbells & my sister, bro & sis-in-law & roomie (dude, I have got to come up with a name), artsy-designer pal, and of course Albany John. I can’t express how happy I was to be surrounded with so many wonderful people! Thank you so much for coming out! You guys made me feel like I was sitting at the popular kids’ table at lunch!

My sister and ellsbells showed up together bearing a… GIGANTIC OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE!!! And it was still warm. Who needs cake when you’ve got a big honkin warm cookie?! Needless to say, with so many food fans at the table, this cookie was munched quite quickly!

Ah, what a beerific birthday! Prost!

P.S. - don't get super excited and forget to eat all day, and then forget to order dinner as well! Not that I did or anything... just so that you don't ... but if you do... uh, WOAH!!

Lindt Pistachio

Today is the day of candy bars! I started off with a ProMax Nutty Butter Crisp bar for breakfast (officially they’re an energy bar, but puh-leaze. Peanut butter goodness!)

I stopped by the Lindt store on this most glorious of glorious day and decided to treat myself to a second bar of candy for lunch. I am not really a fan of real chocolate, but I will flip out over just about anything Lindt. Their white chocolate stuff? Don’t even get me started. But today I was drawn to the pistachio filled milk chocolate bars. There was even a picture of a pistachio in the drawing. How decadently tempting! Let's open this baby up!


There were 12 pieces of pistachio filled milk chocolate segments in this bar. Yummy. It looked like there would be a good ratio of filling : chocolate (ie, lots of filling). I like the Lindt milk chocolate best out of all chocolates – very creamy, smooth, and an overall great flavor to a non-chocolate fan like myself. Chocoholics: is Lindt passable for you?

I bit into one, and there was a nice taste of pistachio paste. Kind of reminded me of marzipan, but fluffy. (Oh, duh, I just read the label. It says ‘with marzipan filling’. Wow am I observant today!) Sadly, there were no pistachios in what I ate, which is really annoying since it is in the picture (darn you, misleading ads!). Annoying, but not soul crushing or anything. It’s still a damn good candy bar. They are $4.50 at the Lindt in Crossgates Mall, or $2.25 at the Lindt that is closing in Stuyvesant Plaza (everything is 50% off, and pretty picked through!).

Well, this day has started off quite nicely. I am anticipating a weekend of merriment spent with awesome friends (and a smidge of family ;]). I hope your weekend goes smashingly!

Snow Man Ice Cream

Count out your quarters and head on over to Snow Man in Troy, NY for some delicious ice cream! One of the most glorious day ever known is soon here, and this is a nice pre-celebration treat.

For $2.00 even you can get a small serving of ice cream – hard, fro-yo, soft serve. $2.35 for a medium. I forget how much the large is. I usually opt for the small, since Snow Man’s portions are quite generous.

Snow Man is very easy to spot. The sign is stuck to the roof and all vintage looking and cute. However, the lines are what you’ll definitely see first. “Woah, what are all these people doing outside in a crowd in Troy?! OHHHH! ICE CREAM!! YES!” But then again, that’s just how my brain works. Not terribly well, but give it enough time and it might figure out what’s going on.

I like the lines at Snow Man, actually. They go pretty quickly, but give you enough time to read the boards to see what you want to order. A float? Ice cream? Ice cream pie for the whole family? A sundae? Hmm… I noticed a sign that said “White Chocolate Macadamia”. Pshh, game OVER! It turns out it was for the fat-free low-calorie ice cream thing (I think it’s 8 delight… or something like that), which means that I can classify it as ‘healthy’ (Dad, I’m kidding).

For people that are familiar with and enjoy Tasty De-Lite, a low-cal/low-fat ice cream chain in the city, you will love this stuff! I won’t say it tasted like a white chocolate chip and macadamia nut cookie, but it had nice flavors of each, with a bit of that fake sweetness which made me think of the ‘cheesecake’ Tasty De-Lite flavor. You know - it doesn’t really taste like what it says is, but it’s pretty close, and whatever it is, it’s good. Man, I hope I didn’t just turn a bunch of you guys off from trying this stuff. Just trust me, it was good and it was really creamy too. I had a toddler begging bites off of me until that cup was gone.

Albany John is partial to their frozen yogurt flavors like coffee and black raspberry. Their regular ice cream soft serve is also nice and creamy. Really, everything is very good and worth a try.

I like the cup more since it's a little more portable than the cone (and, well, I'm more than a little messy). Snow Man has a lot with some parking spaces. It can get busy, but most people walk in from around the neighborhood, so you probably won’t have a tough time parking in the lot. Or just park on the street. This ice cream stand in Lansingburgh, NY is in an easily accessible location, and very worth a trip (heck, for the creaminess and choices alone!). They even take Visa and Mastercard!
Oh, look. Early prezzies for one of the most glorious days in all the land from Manhattan Maka. Hello Kitty nesting bento boxes (bottom-ish) and Hello Kitty fork, spoon, and chopstick set in a cute hard plastic container (top-ish)! (they look like crap because I had to cut myself out, and I was so excited that I couldn't sit still for any pictures. heh heh)

Mustard Glazed Potatoes

I love mustard. I used to not be much of a condiment gal, but boy you should see my fridge doors now! What I haven’t tried is a mustard glaze, and boy have some bloggers been posting tasty looking mustard glazed food.

Steve glazed asparagus that made me drool.

And then I saw braised turnips with mustard sauce from Eat This. O. M. G. They looked absolutely slathered with sauce (win!).

My CSA hasn’t started up yet and I haven’t heard of an estimate for when they expect to start. Because of this, I don’t want to have a lot of veggies on hand in case they call me up and say “VEGGIES OVA HEEEERRREEE”. I am also getting kind of paranoid that there will be absolutely no vegetables, which would be a huge bummer since I was kind of banking on having tons of miscellaneous vegetables to eat since I knew we wouldn’t exactly be flush with cash this summer. But that’s the dice you roll with CSAs, so keep your fingers crossed for me! Actually, one of my friends is going on vacation and letting me pick up her CSA share this week, so I am very eager to try out her share!

I have been eating massive amounts of cabbage and potatoes, though. This is why I like CSAs – because you get a lot of things and essentially have no choice in picking what you get. Left to my own vices I get whatever is cheap so that I can eat a lot of it and not feel badly about spending too much. CSAs are quite the treat.

Ok, right. So I haven’t had a lot of produce at home. Except for my sack o' potatoes and heads of cabbage. So I made mustard glazed cabbage using the method from Eat This' braised and glazed turnips

Braised & Glazed Potatoes

1 lb potatoes, cubed
1-2 T olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced (I use the garlic press)
1 C chicken jello (aspic)
½ C water
3-4 T mustard from jar
salt and pepper to taste

Heat up a pan over medium-high heat. Add olive oil and garlic, and then add in potatoes and brown for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add chicken jello, water, and cover. Let cook approx 8 minutes. When potatoes are tender, remove from pan. Keep the juices in the pan.

Add mustard, salt and pepper. Simmer and stir until mixture thickens into a sauce. Pour over potatoes.

You can also use cornstarch and other stocks/broths. I just have lots of chicken jello left over from making XLB, so that’s what I used.

Next time I’m trying out the tin of Coleman’s Mustard I bought. The stuff from the jar wasn’t spicy at all, so the dish could have used more of a mustard-y kick. For the record though - Tasty, tasty recipe.