RIP Raquel Welch, The Hottest Girl Ever With a Laser Gun
After 25 years of tech journalism in print and web, it's time for a pivot
This week, I was a bit taken by the passing of actress and sex symbol Raquel Welch, who died at 82. Her first film role was in the 1966 Sci-Fi classic Fantastic Voyage as Cora Peterson, a medical technician in a tight white SCUBA wetsuit (video) and crewmember of the miniaturized submarine Proteus on a race against time mission to the inside of a Soviet scientist’s injured brain. Albeit dated, it’s a great movie, and if you have HBO Max, I encourage you to watch it if you’ve never seen it.
In addition to being notable for giving young boys heart palpitations with her bombshell figure and coyish smile, she also wielded one of the first film examples of a realistic laser gun (the first was in 1964’s Goldfinger) as the technology had only been demonstrated in 1960, just six years earlier.
With her passing, I decided to make her a special cocktail, the “Fantastic Voyage”. Welch was born in Illinois in 1940 Jo Raquel Tejada, the daughter of a aeronautical engineer from Bolivia, so I felt it was appropriate to make this cocktail out of Singani, a white Muscat brandy of Bolivian origin similar to Peruvian/Chilean Pisco. If you can’t find a Singani, it’s ok to use Pisco (especially a Muscat one) for this.
FANTASTIC VOYAGE
- 2oz Singani 63 (for Raquel Welch, intoxicating and Bolivian)
- 2oz POM Wonderful pomegranate juice
- 2oz Cranberry Juice Cocktail
- .5oz Lime Cordial
Shake with ice
