Lottery Jam

Liquid Gold recipe
1 oz vodka
1 oz cream
1/2 oz Galliano® herbal liqueur
1/2 oz white creme de cacao

Shake ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass.

On top of bartender and liquor store cashier, I also take on the responsibility of the ever so patient lottery machine operator. For anyone who doesn't play the NJ lottery or who is unfamiliar with it...STAY THAT WAY! The only people who actually play it are senior citizens. So, if you're feeling lucky one day and decide to stop in and buy some tickets, chances are you'll be stuck behind some 70 year old man who has nothing better to do with his money than spend it on $50 worth of Pick 3's and Pick 4's. There's no doubt that you'll be waiting in line for a while.

ATTENTION ALL LOTTERY VIRGINS: PLEASE REMAIN ABSTINENT!

To help those understand the utter aggravation of checking a stack of tickets for winners or punching in every variation of the number 6487; I am about to engage you in a little story. An old nagging woman comes in one day (the type that if you accidentally screw up one of her requests will condemn you to hell to spend an eternity in front of the lottery machine printing out her endless list of numbers)and hands me about five tickets to reprint the same numbers for that night. I obediently fulfill my duty as lottery machine operator and reprint her numbers. When I am done I ask if she needs the old tickets back and as she shakes her head NO, I throw them in the garbage. Just as I think my interaction with this woman is over, she discovers the winning Pick 3 number from the previous night and says that her old ticket was a winner. Annoyed that she didn't point this out before I had disposed of the tickets, I now find my pathetic self rummaging through a garbage full of losing lottery tickets which all look exactly the same.

After about what seemed like a lifetime of garbage picking, I finally find her ticket and scan it through the machine only to find out that it was NOT a winner at all. The old woman (whom I now want to jump over the counter and strangle with my bare hands) looks at me and says, "Oh really? I thought I had the winning number."

Do me a favor. When you're done wasting my time, I suggest you walk over to the bar and order up a pint of liquid gold because that's the closest you're ever going to get to hitting it big and I will personally make sure of that.