Banana Hanging Lounge Chair

Long Winded Instructions

This drink reminds me of an old Mitch Hedberg joke. In honor of Mitch, I’d like to present our dramatic interpretation of his classic joke.
Person 1: Would you like a frozen banana?
Person 2: No, but I’d like a regular banana in a Banana Hanging Lounge Chair later, so... yeah.

I changed some of the names of things, but the essence of the joke is there. And I’m sure you liked it just as much as the original. That’s how I expect the rest of this to go. The essence of this cocktail will be clear (it’s banana) and you might be lost during parts of this, but by the end you’ll have a vague sense that you enjoyed yourself. Or, at the very least you’ll feel that you were meant to have enjoyed yourself. And you’ll be right.

So let’s not delay any further. Take my hand and come with me on a journey of banana, sugar, vanilla, and booze. It’s a simple cocktail with a simple syrup. And you would think, with something as simple as this, the instructions wouldn’t be very long. But here we are anyways, really inking this thing for all it’s worth. In mixology, you have to keep your word count up in your instructions if you want to be taken seriously.

Pour some white rum into a shaker. How much, you ask? That’s a very good question. The answer lies within yourself. You must take a spiritual look inward. Throw away your inhibitions and let your mind go. You’ll discover your inner child, the reason you’re afraid of caterpillars, and the amount of rum to include in a Banana Hanging Lounge Chair. You can also just look at the recipe here on this same page. Now add half a banana.

At this point, you might feel like you’ve done enough. With all of the text you just read, you may well already feel exhausted. But I assure you, we’re just getting started.

You need to muddle that banana. I say muddle, but I really mean smash or mash. And, I don’t say this lightly. If you could hear my tone, you’d find it quite somber. It would have sounded downright chipper up until now, but suddenly turned deep and morose. There are fewer things I take more seriously than this specific step of this cocktail recipe. So, if you were enjoying yourself up until this point, please stop for just a moment and cast your gaze sternly down at your mixer. Summon all of your muddling strength and go to work. You want to muddle unrelentingly until the banana has ceased being a solid (if not soft) treat and become something entirely new… a liquid treat. Don’t give up until all of the remaining chunks have been smashed into oblivion. Good work.

Ok now you can cheer back up. That was a dark time that we shared, but it will be worth it. Thank you for not losing faith in this drink.

What you’ll want to do now is add the caramel simple syrup. Creating that will be a task described on an entirely different page. It will be yet another challenge, this time of strength and stamina. You will emerge a stronger person (particularly in your stirring arm) and you’ll have a sweet, rich syrup for your trouble as well. Pour it on in there.

Shake those things with ice so your drink is nice and cold. And turn your attention now to your presentation glass. I like to drink these with a single large ice cube or ball. Now I know I always say that, but this time I really mean it. Because of the banana, and despite your best efforts at muddling, this cocktail will be a bit thicker than most others. If you pour this into small cubed or crushed ice, it will be slow and difficult to pour it back out of there as you drink. A single cube offers no such resistance. You could also choose to skip the cube altogether given that you’ve cooled your drink in the shaker just now. This is entirely up to you. Either way, strain that drink out now into your glass. Toss a dash of cinnamon on top.

The final step, as with so many other drinks, is to add the garnish. In this case, in an impressive display of creativity, we’ll be using banana. You can throw the other half of the banana on there with a tooth pick if you like (as pictured). Or, if you find that garish, try just a slice. You can perch it right there on the rim.

Wow. Here we are at the end of our journey. You’ve come so far and grown so much. I can hardly recognize you. This recipe has been an emotional roller coaster of light frivolity, intense focus and sense of purpose, a trial of strength and stamina, and a challenge of your patience for reading meandering, nonsensical instructions built with an unrecognizable sentence structure, grammatical errors, and run-on lists that never seem to end. Until they finally do.