Alabama slammers

This was one of my favorite mixed drinks when I was underage. I got it at my junior prom afterparty at a now defunct NYC club. How this drink found its way to my mouth, i'm not sure. Did someone recommend it? Did I pick it at random? Did the person buying the drinks pick it and I drank whatever was handed to me? Who knows. Seventeen and waltzing around with a cocktail in my tux in Manhattan. Wonderful, wonderful memories. So much so that I always get nostalgic when I hear or read about this drink...as I just did.

I was reading a front page story in The Star-Ledger about a 70-year-old Atlantic City cocktail waitress...one of those profile things...certainly not front page "news." Very interesting, though. And, yeah, sad...as she spoke about her job as the longest-serving waitress in A.C. helping her "not to think" about the deaths of her daughter, mother AND husband over the past 4 years. And then she mentioned one of her regulars who gave her and her late husband jewelry as parting gifts...parting because he was dying. She never even knew his name. But she remembers that he drank Alabama slammers.