“My Kubota”

I never thought I’d own a tractor.  In fact, I never thought I’d need a tractor.  Tractors are way cool and all, but how do you sell ‘way cool’ to your wife or girlfriend?  Chicks just don’t get it. Of course way cool became essential due to this whole “drop your city life, move to the country to grow some grapes and start a winery” thing.  As it turns out, tractors are more than just large toys for boys; they actually serve a practical purpose.  Back in the spring I was a little skeptical about whether we would need a tractor a year prior to planting a vineyard.   But there was a great sale on new Kubota tractors in April and I just couldn’t resist.  It’s been a huge help in clearing the apple trees, collecting rocks, moving top soil, digging out that backyard tomb…  Or on slow days, just going outside digging some holes just to fill them and dig them again is a pretty cool way to spend a few hours. Best. Toy … er…Tool. Ever.  I can only imagine how important it will be in the next few years.  It deserves a drink in its honor.

This drink could have also been called the “Runaway Tractor” due to an incident shortly after getting the tractor. Let’s just say that finding your new tractor 200 feet from where you parked it is a pretty scary way to find out it has a faulty parking brake.  After leaving it in front of our house, I was terrified to find it at the bottom of our property.  With the driveway only feet from where it stopped, it could very easily have rolled on to the street.  It also stopped inches from one of the apple trees.  Good fortune!  Sort of.

As an added bonus because this is the first day of the 12 Days of Drinking, this drink comes with a song.  When we first thought about celebrating our first tractor, a Kubota, with a drink, I couldn’t get “My Sharona” out of my head. Since My Sharona was released in 1979, pretty much every 3 syllable word that is even close to Sharona is a trigger for three weeks of constant “myyyy Sha-ro-na” going though my head.   If you know this song, you know exactly what I mean.  If you’ve never heard this song, you’re in for a treat.  It’s easily one of the top 5 catchy “I can’t get this freaking song out my head” songs of all time.  If you’re gutsy enough to listen to it, it will stick with you for at least three weeks.  You can thank me later.

ma-ma-ma-ma-ma myyy Ku-bo-ta.

Because all Kubotas are orange, everything about this drink is orange (except for the cardamom bitters to help balance it).  My Kubota based on an “Orange Crush” cocktail.  It has 1.5oz mandarin vodka, 3/4oz Legend Distilling’s Orange Sumac liqueur (you could substitute triple sec), the juice of 1/2 an orange, organic orange soda (made in the Sodastream), and a dash of cardamom bitters.  And if you think it’s not sweet enough, you can always use a mini-tractor to delicately dump in some some coconut sugar… I mean dirt…