Manhattan Transfer

So I realized at about 7pm that I needed to create a drink of the week. Remember? I promised I would give them to you on Fridays now, so you could enjoy them all weekend long. Well, It was a beautiful day here in Southern California. The kind of day that makes you want to sip on white wine, sit in the sun and forget about the fact that taxes are due in less than a month. Unfortunately, I was only able to think about taxes - - the white wine and sunshine never came to fruition. Yet, I was also able to create a phenomenal drink of the week. My inspiration...the enormous orange tree in our backyard that is so fruitful one would think i put fertility drugs in the soil. I didn't. In case you were wondering.
Let me start by saying that I am not super fond of screwdrivers (the drink, not the tool. I actually find the tool quite useful). Screwdrivers were our drink of choice senior year in high school, and as you can imagine, we often drank too many, and we often got sick, and it often smelled. My disdain aside, I decided that the screwdriver would be my basis for this drink. I screamed out the back door for Andrew to pick me a few ripe oranges off the tree. He came back with oranges that did not look ripe to me, but as it turns out they were ripe and they were phenomenal. So I squeezed them all in to a glass pitcher and then grabbed a grapefruit and a couple of blood oranges I had laying around and squeezed them, too. Oh, and yes, I just happened to have blood oranges laying around, that's what foodies do. Now, this is where it gets a bit tricky - - for you, not for me - - because,I just started pulling a bunch of stuff out of the fridge, the pantry and the liquor cabinet. I realized I don't actually come up with drinks that people can just make that day. Noooooooo, that would be too easy. Instead I grab as many hard to find (lets call them aspirational) ingredients as possible, pour them in a glass and then say, "Hey! Hey, you! Look at me. Look what I just made. Jealous?" I'm probably going to continue to do it, but I at least wanted you to know that I was aware of it. Back to the drink. Into a glass of ice I poured the juice mixture to just over the half way point. The glass should always be at least half full, right? Then I added a shot of Grey Goose L'Orange Vodka, and then I started with the splashes.
A splash of:
Rose's Sweetened Lime Juice
Rose's Grenadine
Campari
Robert Lambert Blood Orange Syrup (I know, I know)
Cointreau
Mixed it all together, and without even taking a sip, ( I already knew it was going to be amazing)handed it off to my brother. His expression after his first sip assured me of that. Then it was off to the master drink tester. I wasn't super confident, since Andrew isn't much into juice (unless you count vitamin water as juice). He reluctantly took a sip after inspecting the contents of the glass and sniffing it. I think he said something like, "Not bad. I could see how someone would really like this if they liked juice." Then he apologized for not liking juice and handed the drink back to me. I loved it. But wait, I still had to come up with a name. I proceeded to make dinner, eat dinner, wash dishes, all the while trying to think of a name and nothing. Then I walked myself into the bathroom, sat down to pee and two words popped into my head. "Manhattan Transfer." It was like magic. I have no idea why, or how, but they just did, so I decided to go with it.