Good idea, cheap vodka

Between my creative career and W.'s late academic re-entry, the funds are in short supply--for now. If there were tracks in this town, we'd live on the other side of them.

We've gotten good at at optimizing eBay usage to stay in the kind of jeans we grew to love behind the Orange curtain. Our cereal doesn't come in a box, and our beans are scooped from a bin. Coffee is made at home 99% of the time. We wash and reuse the Ziploc bags. It's gotten to be a challenge, how to live the best with the least. And we're good at it.

I recently tried to be thrifty-clever, coaxing the last bit of flavor from a mango pit by infusing a so-cheap-it's-worth-the-risk vodka with it, some lime zest, and a couple chunks of piloncillo sugar.



It looked pretty, tasted like rubbing alcohol.

We used it in a vodka gimlet. Rubbing alcohol.

We shook it with strawberries and lime juice and sprinkled the whole thing with coconut and promised never to speak of that drink in public. And even the frou-frou didn't cut the burn.

So vodka made it to the list of things that aren't worth the skimp--along with Parmesean cheese, irrigation piping, shovels, bacon, and bikini waxes.

We've tried it, so you don't have to.