Soviet Secrets

Stoli Grill's "KGB"

Comments (0) By George Alexander Thursday, Nov 15 2001

It is the 83rd anniversary of the storming of the Winter Palace in Petrograd, November 7, New Style, the day the Soviet Union was born. It seems a fitting day to lift a glass to the Great October Socialist Revolution. After all, this was a very big holiday on one-sixth of the world's surface for some 75 years.

I venture out west, past the giant houses of capitalist exploiters, to Stoli Grill (13148 Memorial Drive, 713-932-1336). There, I am greeted by a live band playing Frank Sinatra songs and, at the bar, my old comrades Volodya and Yura. I ask the bartender, Rudy "Rudik" Flores, if he has a cocktail for this holiday.

"Just the thing," Rudy replies, as if he was waiting for this request. "The KGB."

Rudy hoists a bottle here and there and presents me with a creamy-looking concoction over ice cubes in a standard old- fashioned glass. It doesn't look like homemade vodka that's been distilled through a bathroom water heater. I take a sip. It doesn't seem to contain any vodka at all, but it is smooth and tasty, with the suggestion of ripe citrus fruit. How is this a drink that captures the immortal spirit of the founder of the KGB, Felix Dzerzhinsky? Or even the current president of the Russian Federation and former KGB grunt Vladimir Putin? I drink, and soon these questions do not trouble me.

Stoli Grill's "KGB":

1.5 ounces Grand Marnier liqueur
3/4 ounce of Kahlúa coffee liqueur
3/4 ounce of Bailey's Irish Cream liqueur

Pour ingredients over ice in an old-fashioned glass and stir. Na zdarovya!