BrewTruc's soft launch in San Francisco. Photo: Gary Soup

What do you get when you cross a food truck with a bar? A damn good time, if you ask us!  Just make sure the bartender doesn’t drive after doing shots with customers.

A few weeks ago, QSR spoke with Andrew Freeman about food trends for 2012.  Freeman heads a high-end hospitality agency that released a preview of the hottest trends and predictions in food and restaurants. Freeman’s list also turns an eye toward beers, cocktails, and spirits, informing breweries and bars of what’s on its way up in 2012.

With the public’s insatiable desire for food trucks, it was only a matter of time before drinks and food trucks combined forces.

Last June we saw the 1st liquor license being awarded to a New York food truck, but Pera was still primarily a food truck that also served drinks.  Freeman thinks it will be more about promotional drink trucks than full-service saloons on wheels.

Last summer we had the Camarena Tequila Taco Truck in New York for about a month, and it traveled to other cities as well.  They couldn’t give away tequila, but they did give away tequila-infused tacos, t-shirts and other promotional goodies.

Camarena Tequila Taco Truck Launch Party

And who can forget the Dos Equis Feast of the Brave Truck that was in New York for 10 days around Cinco de Mayo last year.  Grasshopper, ostrich meat and veal brains in tacos!  That could make anyone want a Dos Equis to help wash it down.  Unfortunately, NYC laws didn’t allow the Dos Equis truck to serve beer.

The Leblon Cachaca Caiprinhas Truck has multiple locations nationwide, and the BrewTruc rolls around San Francisco.

Freeman, however, says cocktail trucks will not repeat the boom of food trucks due to legal issues.  That is certainly the case in New York City, although New Jersey may be a little more accommodating.  We wrote about the Freixenet Tastings & Tapas Truck in NJ last summer that gave away sparkling wine and tapas outside popular nightlife establishments.

“Some of these trucks serve primarily as promotional vehicles rather than as independent business operations,” he says. “The serve to promote a brand rather than to make money. Where it’s legal, they will be popular but more as a novelty – [like] evening meet-ups and parties.”

More trucks will make use of alcoholic beverages in alternative forms, Freeman explains.  Think boozy ice cream trucks with whiskey popsicles or a Manhattan-flavored snow cone.

Hey, we had those last year with the Kelvin Slush Prohibition-Style Happy Hour.  It was one of the highlights of our summer.

Boston Tea Party (tea slush, raspberry mix-in & Don Q Limon Rum)

Since we’re deep into the holiday season, I wanted to share our favorite winter drink recipe.  It’s technically called a Cranberry Hot Toddy, but we call it GROG!  After a few of these, you’ll know where the word “groggy” comes from.

Feel free to share this recipe with your loved ones and pass it around.  It’s a great way to spread holiday cheer.

We posted this recipe for Thanksgiving 2009, but have picked up a lot of new readers since then, so we decided to reprint it for people who didn’t see it last year.

We’re going to take some time off until after the New Year.  Happy Holidays to everyone, and we’ll see you out on the street in January.

Cranberry Hot Toddy aka GROG

2 tangerines

1/2 cup whole cloves

4 quarts unsweetened cranberry-raspberry juice (if unsweetened not available, omit the sugar below)

2 2/3 cups sugar

4 cups amber rum (such as Bacardi Gold.  Rum can be omitted for Virgin Grog.)

4 cinnamon sticks

1/4 tsp clove

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Cut tangerines crosswise into 1/4-inch thick rounds and remove seeds. Stick whole cloves into each slice of tangerine until the tangerine slices are mostly studded with the whole cloves.  In a large pot, simmer cranberry juice, sugar, studded tangerines and all the spices (including the rest of the whole cloves). Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.  Remove the tangerines and whole cloves with a slotted spoon or strainer. Add rum (if desired). Serve in large mugs or heatproof glasses. Enjoy!

Makes about 16 cups

Prep time: About 15 minutes

Cooking time: About 35 minutes

Storage tip: This makes quite a large batch. We recommend keeping the empty cranberry juice bottles for storing the leftover grog in the fridge.  It has stayed in our refrigerator for up to a month and still tastes great when reheated. It can be reheated in either the microwave or on the stovetop.

DEFINITELY OUR FAVORITE WINTER DRINK! Let us know what you think in the comments.

Long Island Iced Tea always cracks me up because I grew up on Long Island  – and didn’t know anybody who drank them growing up!  (We were more into kamikazes back then.)

Since then, I’ve run across this drink in Dublin, Belize and other places far from LI, and occasionally order one.  When I order one and tell people I actually grew up on Long Island, it’s a good conversation starter in a foreign land.

The recipe is very simple – all you need are the white liquors (rum, gin, tequila, vodka and triple sec), citrus juice or sour mix and coke (-a cola).

Cheers!

We know you all enjoy street food from vendors of all types around the world.  What we would often like is a drink  on the street, too.

Briki is a small bar in Athens that during peak hours, you really need to have skill squeezing yourself in among the crowds. Yet, it’s so welcoming that it has become a “steki”… a meeting place, a hangout for everyone from lawyers with formal ties and cufflinks to students, snobbish shoppers, ideologist activists and dazed tourists.

A long bar, fixed underneath an abundance of colorful glass balls hanging from the ceiling, serving coffee and baguettes during daytime and spirits later on. That’s when the decks acquire quite a character.  The busiest time is anytime after 7pm daily. [Spotted By Locals]

Sounds like our kind of place.

Bahamas Goombay Punch actually looks pretty good.  It’s a slightly carbonated, very sweet punch, obviously popular in the Bahamas.  It would probably go pretty well with some food from the Jamaican Dutchy cart.

Some people are a little too happy, kind of like the guy on the Goomba Punch can.  If someone is too happy, instead of slapping them, you can always give them a can of Deeppresso, guaranteed to make even the happiest person depressed.

Of course, there are other ways to mellow people out besides making them depressed.  You can try Swiss Cannabis Drink, which manufacturers claim is made from hemp resin, but has no THC.  That kind of defeats the purpose for their target customers, especially considering the can promises you’ll “get the magic power” of hemp seeds.

If you’re looking for something a little more family-friendly, might we suggest Kidsbeer.  We kids you not.   Kidsbeer is so wrong on so many levels it makes our heads spin, yet it’s so popular in Japan that monthly shipments are approaching 100,000 bottles.

Kidsbeer used to be a normal soda called Guarana until 2003, when restaurant owner Yuichi Asaba renamed the bubbly brew “Kidsbeer” and watched sales go through the roof.   You would expect the Japanese government to stop this, but they haven’t, and the success of Kidsbeer has spawned imitators such as Sanagria.

If you want to see some truly horrifying ads with kids and whole families drinking faux-beer, click here and then on the lettering under the TV sets.

We all know kids need to drink something more nutritious than Kidsbeer.  How about Water Salad?  It’s salad-flavored water, basically what you get from a salad spinner.  What even more amusing is that it’s owned by Coca-Cola, and there are 5 different flavors.

Since we’re talking about vegetable-flavored soda, let’s not forget Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray, everyone’s favorite celery flavored soda.  This was actually pretty popular in New York in years past, and we used to have it in my house growing up.  My father and grandfather both enjoyed it, and you can still get it at Jewish delis such as Katz’s Deli.  ENJOY!

Cranberry Hot Toddy aka GROG

2 tangerines

1/2 cup whole cloves

4 quarts unsweetened cranberry-raspberry juice (if unsweetened not available, omit the sugar below)

2 2/3 cups sugar

4 cups amber rum (such as Bacardi Gold.  Rum can be omitted for Virgin Grog.)

4 cinnamon sticks

1/4 tsp clove

1/4 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp nutmeg

Cut tangerines crosswise into 1/4-inch thick rounds and remove seeds. Stick whole cloves into each slice of tangerine until the tangerine slices are mostly studded with the whole cloves.  In a large pot, simmer cranberry juice, sugar, studded tangerines and all the spices (including the rest of the whole cloves). Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.  Remove the tangerines and whole cloves with a slotted spoon or strainer. Add rum (if desired). Serve in large mugs or heatproof glasses. Enjoy!

Makes about 16 cups

Prep time: About 15 minutes

Cooking time: About 35 minutes

Storage tip: This makes quite a large batch. We recommend keeping the empty cranberry juice bottles for storing the leftover grog in the fridge.  It has stayed in our refrigerator for up to a month and still tastes great when reheated. It can be reheated in either the microwave or on the stovetop.

DEFINITELY OUR FAVORITE WINTER DRINK

Courtesy of newyorkstreetfood.com