Best Alcoholic Tapioca Balls

Thank the beverage gods someone figured out how to make Taiwanese bubble tea with liquor. Not that it takes a real genius to add alcohol to anything, but for those of us who have equally strong hankerings for booze and dessert, the spiked bubble teas at Blue Koi are a five-star drinking experience. Maybe it's the thrill of watching brown tapioca beads make their way up the giant, candy-colored straw to your lips. (If you think that's gross, you haven't lived.) The caveat is that it is possible to screw this up. You don't want, say, a red-bean-and-whiskey bubble tea, unless you're trying to detach from a particularly painful blind date. Blue Koi's waiters will tell you that rum is the liquor of choice, and it goes best with something tropical, like a mango bubble tea. But from personal experience, we can tell you that the all-time best is the vodka-and-almond bubble tea. Bubble tea detractors have said that drinking the tapioca balls feels like you're chewing the insides of your cheeks. Lies! Tell them that chewing tapioca balls with a cocktail is better than smoking while you drink, because you're not forcing anyone else to chew second-hand tapioca balls with you.