Daiquiri (p. 60), Gin fizz (p. 56), Moscow mule (p. 58),and Cuba libre (p. 60)

I thought it would be a great idea to make Josh and myself a few drinks to enjoy during "The Amazing Race" to enjoy along with our delicious meal. Surprisingly, I am making great progress through the Cocktails chapter and I don't have a huge amount of drinks left to make.

I made myself a Daiquiri (p. 60). I shook light rum, lime juice, and sugar syrup together with ice, then strained them in to a chilled glass:



Odd. First, I don't really understand these drinks that have a couple ounces of liquid in the bottom of a glass. This drink was STRONG and way, way too sour for me. Plus I thought daiquiris usually had fruit involved. This daiquiri was fruit-free.

Josh's first drink was a Gin fizz (p. 56). I shook gin, lime juice, and sugar syrup (oddly, the exact same ingredients as the daiquiri, except for rum versus gin) with ice, poured it in to a glass, and then filled the glass with club soda:



Josh liked it. He thought the club soda really rounded out the flavor, nicely balancing the sweet and sour.

I made myself a Moscow mule (p. 58). I actually had completely forgotten about this drink and it took me quite a while to figure out what the heck it was. I poured vodka and lime juice in a highball glass (TJOC also recommends a mug [a mug?? Really??]), filling the glass with ginger beer.



I really don't like ginger beer. What a strange drink this was. It was like drinking a big glass of sour beer with a vodka chaser. I can't say I will sign on for this drink again.

I thought Josh would actually like a nice Cuba libre (p. 60). The drink was incredibly simple--rum, Coke, and lime juice poured over ice:



Josh was a big fan. It's essentially a rum and Coke with lime, so if that sounds good to you, order one the next time you go out.

These posts are really hard for me because how much can you say about a cocktail? I don't know how people write entire blogs about alcohol.

Random facts:

• Ginger beer peaked in popularity in the early nineteenth century and was seen as healthy due to ginger's reputation as a digestive aid (Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink, p. 259)
• Ginger beer seems to be alcoholic while ginger ale is not (personal observation)
• Some rum is fermented from molasses. (On Food and Cooking, p. 765). I totally did not know that
• A gin fizz becomes a "golden fizz" if you add an egg yolk (Wikipedia). I think that sounds repulsive

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Gin cocktail (p. 56), Bronx (p. 56), Rusty nail (p. 60), Brandy Alexander (p. 62), and Planter's punch (p. 61)

**Warning to all readers--I'm writing these blog posts spectacularly out of order and I'm posting them as I write them, so if you aren't reading this in a blog reader (which will pick them up regardless of when I post them) and aren't a fan on Facebook (I will FB when I post), keep checking back**

Much like Rachel a couple of weeks ago, my father decided that it was his duty to help me knock as many TJOC-related cocktails off the list as he could. My dad had the opposite problem that Rachel had--he had a fully stocked bar but no juices, which causes a real problem with TJOC cocktails. We essentially had 7 cocktails we could make. And, since Dad has been on the Adkin's Diet for over ten years, he couldn't drink any of the cocktails anyway. So my poor stepmother had to step up to the plate. Fortunately for me, she was willing to drink gin! It seems nobody else I know is willing to do so.

(And, like the last all-alcohol post, I am going to include fun facts!)

The first drink was a Gin cocktail (p. 56).

Facts about gin (Wikipedia):

• The predominant flavor of gin comes from juniper berries
• Monks used a juniper-flavored alcohol similar to gin as a medication for the bubonic plague (it did not work)
• Because gin is relatively easy to produce, it was a favorite during Prohibition
• "Sloe gin" is infused with sloes, which are the fruit of the blackthorn

I shook gin, orange juice, lemon juice, and a dash of bitters together, and strained it over ice:



Vickie said it was good but a little too sour. I've noticed that gin drinks do tend towards sour rather than the fruity.

For some mysterious reason I was mixing the drinks in a Hidden Valley ranch shaker even though Dad has a fully stocked wet bar complete with real shakers. And I was totally sober. I must have been tired. I didn't take a picture of the next drink for some reason. The next drink I made her was a Bronx (p. 56).

Bronx factoids (Wikipedia):

• A Bronx is a perfect martini with orange juice
• The Bronx was a very popular cocktail during prohibition
• Vermouth was originally used to cover up the flavors of cheap wine

I shook gin with a dash of sweet vermouth, a dash of dry vermouth, and orange juice. I strained it in to a cocktail glass. It was very gin-y. This is a cocktail to avoid if you don't love drinking gin. It's almost completely gin.



Dad was pretty excited about the recipe for the Rusty nail (p. 60).

Rusty nail facts (Wikipedia):

• A rusty nail is commonly drank as both as a cocktail and as a martini
• The Canadian version of the drink substitutes rye whiskey for the Scotch and is called a Donald Sutherland
• Drambuie is a honey and herb flavored malt whiskey

Dad favors Scotch and really likes Drambuie--so a drink that is 3/4 Scotch and 1/4 Drambuie is perfection:



He loved it! The honeyed flavor of the Drambuie mixed perfectly with the Scotch. Dad said he'll remember this recipe for the future because he loved it that much. Drinks with only two ingredients are called "duos" and they are excellent if you really like both ingredients.

Vickie asked to if she could have something other than gin so I made her a Brandy Alexander (p. 62).

Brandy Alexander facts (Wikipedia):

• The brandy alexander is based on the "Alexander" which is gin based
• If the drink is made with light creme de cacao, it's considered a "Panama"
• The "creme" in creme de cacao refers to the texture of the liqueur--there are no dairy products in it

I shook brandy, dark creme de cacao, and a dash of heavy cream together and then strained it in to a glass:



She liked it! I think sometimes Brandy Alexanders are ice cream drinks, which I would now love to have because I think it would be delicious. I really like chocolate based drinks so it was right up my alley.

I decided that maybe I should mix myself a drink and Planter's punch (p. 61) caught my eye.

I shook rum, orange juice, grenadine, lime juice, and a bit of sugar (Dad didn't have sugar syrup and I didn't want to make it) together and then strained the drink over ice:



Another drink that goes down way too easy. I liked it a lot. The rum was perfectly matched with the fruit flavors and it wasn't overly sour. Delicious! TJOC has a large punch recipe for planter's punch, too, and I was looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, I found out while drinking the planter's punch that I am allergic to rum, too (I imagine it has something to do with fruit flavors or extracts in the alcohol) so that stopped my love of the planter's punch. I'm really hating my fruit allergy and it really seems to be expanding.

Any favorite cocktails? Dad, you want to jump in with your thoughts?

RCD3: Salty dog (p.58),Harvey wallbanger (p.58),Grapefruit herb margarita (p.62), Herb syrup I (p.43),Fish house punch (p.65),Fuzzy navel (p.63),etc.

Rachel Cooking Day Post 3

Another all-alcohol post! If you disapprove of drinking, skip this post!

I've decided that because my alcohol posts are pretty boring, I'm going to include random tidbits about the drinks. Let me know if you like that addition or not, I'm on the fence about whether to keep it or not.

Rachel's liquor shelf is very random. Interestingly, even though we almost never drink at home, Josh and I have a very well-stocked liquor cabinet (or, more accurately, liquor cubes), almost entirely because of cooking. The randomness made finding TJOC drinks we could make a challenge.



I also quickly found out that Rachel doesn't have any bar glasses--no highballs, for example. I am aware that none of the drinks pictured are served in the correct glasses. They did have one leg up on our house though--ice cubes. Josh and I seem to have an abnormally small refrigerator and freezer. Because of this fact, we never have ice available (not great for cocktails) and Rachel had tons of ice!

We had the ingredients for a Salty dog (p. 58). I shook vodka and grapefruit juice with ice. Apparently, the difference between a salty dog and a greyhound is the salting of the rim.

Interesting and timely anecdote about salty dogs from Michael Barrier:

Speaking of movies: The release of the Coen brothers' new version of True Grit today reminds me of a long-ago encounter with Charles Portis, the author of the novel. I was a young newspaperman at the time, and I knew Portis slightly—we all called him "Buddy"—because his brother and I worked together on the copy desk at the Arkansas Gazette. In those days, you couldn't buy a mixed drink in Little Rock except at a private club, and Gazette people favored a joint called the Officers Club. One night I happened to be sitting at the bar next to Buddy Portis. I was a novice drinker, and I ordered a salty dog (vodka and grapefruit juice). Portis—a former Marine, among other intimidating things—was drinking something darker and much more menacing, and he looked incredulous when my drink arrived. When I told him what it was, he responded with a devastating critique that Phyllis says I can't quote here without bruising tender ears. Suffice it to say that it was Buddy Portis who set me firmly on the road toward my mature preferences for single malts, martinis, and ice-cold Russian vodka.

I poured grapefruit juice in a little bowl, sprinkled giant salt crystals on a plate, and tried my best to rim the glass:



It didn't work.



So I guess what I really made was a slightly salty greyhound. The drink was tasty! I knew this drink but I didn't know it had a name--I always just ordered a grapefruit and vodka. I went through a period of trying to find a new default drink (my current is a vodka cranberry, which seems so boring) and the greyhound was one of the drinks I tested. Unfortunately, it seems like grapefruit might be yet another fruit I'm allergic to (so far, cranberry is fine) so it didn't make the cut.

For some mysterious reason, Rachel got absolutely obsessed with the idea of having a Harvey wallbanger (p. 58). Now, I will admit, I'm spoiled. I live in a town with about a thousand liquor shops. My favorite liquor store has tons and tons of little airplane-sized bottles, which are perfect when you only have a drink or two to make out of TJOC or you just need a few tablespoons for a recipe and you don't want to buy a whole bottle (or the bottle is expensive). Rachel's town did not have that variety of tiny liquors, so Rachel decided to invest in a big bottle of Galliano.

Random facts about the Harvey wallbanger (Wikipedia):

• Invented by the same man who invented the rusty nail (coming in an upcoming post) and the white Russian
• Galliano is named after Giuseppe Galliano, an Italian war hero
• The flavors of Galliano include anise, juniper, musk yarrow, ginger, lavender, peppermint, vanilla, cinnamon, and about a million other ingredients.
• Most drinks with Galliano include the words "wall", "bang", "yellow", or "golden".

I like the Galliano bottle:



It was an easy cocktail to make. I poured vodka and orange juice over ice, stirred well, then poured the Galliano on the top:



The drink was good. To me, it sort of tasted like drinking perfume with a anise-y aftertaste. I don't like any anise flavored drinks--Ouzo, Jagermeister, etc.--so I wasn't on-board with the Galliano.

As Rachel leafed through TJOC, she decided that she would be willing to drink a Grapefruit herb margarita (p. 62) which required Herb syrup I (p. 43).

Random facts about margaritas/tequila (Wikipedia):

• Margaritas are the most common tequila-based cocktail in the US (in Mexico it's the Paloma)
• Blue agave, the base of tequila, is a large succulent that grows at high altitude
• The trend of the "worm" in the bottle of tequila is a marketing gimmick

For the herb syrup we made sugar syrup , sprinkled rosemary in the pot, and simmered it with for ten minutes:



The rosemary was then strained out. The syrup was surprsingly good. It had a sweet herbal flavor and Rachel took to drinking it by spoonfuls throughout the day.

I mixed grapefruit juice, tequila, lime juice, and herb syrup. I gave up on rimmingthe glass with salt because I failed at it earlier:



I did pour it over ice (this is a "before" picture, still in the glass I was measuring everything in to). It was also a double :) I can't stand tequila, so I didn't try it, but Rachel said it was good. The grapefruit juice meshed well with the herb syrup, although it was very strange flavor combination.

I don't throw many events where punch would be appropriate. This is a problem because TJOC has a rather large number of punch recipes. Rachel thought we should make a punch even though it was essentially only the two of us and I agreed. We could drink it throughout the day.

We decided on Fish house punch (p. 65).

Facts about Fish house punch:

• The drink was invented at the Schuylkill Fishing Company in 1732, which was known as the "Fish house" (Wikipedia)
• Instead of club soda, it is sometimes made with strong tea (TJOC)
• Usually served with a giant ice block (Wikipedia)
• The word "punch" comes form the Hindi word "panch"

We mixed equal amounts sugar syrup, lemon juice, brandy, dark rum, and peach schnapps, with two parts club soda.



The punch was delicious and it would probably be a crowd pleaser. I would say that fish house punch is deceptively easy to drink because it doesn't taste nearly as strong as it actually is. The peach and lemon flavors melded perfectly with the brandy and rum and it was diluted by the club soda. Tasty! I recommended that we not start drinking it until we were almost finished cooking--I was pretty sure the cooking would suffer if we started drinking early. A good choice because the punch was certainly stout.

Since we bought peach schnapps for the punch, it seemed like a perfect time to make a Fuzzy navel (p. 63).

Fuzzy navel facts (Wikipedia):

• If you add vodka to a fuzzy navel you get a "hairy navel"
• "Fuzzy" refers to the peach and "navel" refers to the orange

I poured peach schnapps and orange juice in a glass and stirred. Super easy!



I think almost everyone who drinks mixed drinks has had a fuzzy navel at one point or another. I like them. The never seem very strong and the peach and orange flavors go very well together.

Rachel's husband was going to a basketball game with friends during our cooking and one of the friends happened to be a non-drinker. A perfect person to test out some of TJOC's virgin drinks! We whipped up a Cranberry Collins (p. 64). I mixed cranberry juice and lemon juice in a glass and then filled the glass with club soda.



The drink was fairly bland--it seemed like it needed to be stirred, even though it was very pretty. I recognize that if it was in the recipe-specified glss (a highball) there wouldn't have been nearly as much club soda involved. The recipe confused me--you would think it was a virgin version of the Tom Collins but a Tom Collins doesn't include any cranberry juice...

Rachel's cats insisted they were trying to help us:



Their role was mostly supervisory, although it did include some janitorial work.

Check the comments, I'm going to email Rachel and Jon for their opinions on all of these dishes.

Sugar syrup (p. 43), The Highball (p. 59), Gin & Tonic (p. 56),Scarlett O'Hara (p. 63),Pink lady (p. 57),Grasshopper (p. 63),Whiskey sour (p. 59),

If you have a problem with alcohol, this might be a good post to skip!


You know, people have very different vacation styles. Some like to not plan and just let stuff happen. Others obsessively plan and almost keep a clipboard and whistle. I like to think I'm in the middle. I have found that if you don't plan, you don't do anything! Everyone sits around for at least half the day. I like to make a plan, if we don't stick to it, that's okay, but at least we have any idea.

As I mentioned in the last couple posts, my cousin Erica and her boyfriend Pat were coming to visit us for a day. I wanted to make the day especially fun so that they would come back. I thought about what is special about Fort Collins and came up with breweries! Fort Collins has a ton of breweries. There are at least 4 major breweries and another several brewery/restaurants in town.

Josh had to work a half day, so once Erica and Pat got up, we went to a local brewery/restaurant for lunch. CB&Potts. I really like CB&Potts-the hamburgers are delicious and the beer is excellent. Pat got a sampler and I got a delicious apricot ale along with our lunch. We then went to Budweiser and did a factory tour (plus we got to drink an AMAZING blueberry beer called Wild Blue-it was amazing, I will definitely be looking for that again). We went back to the house, picked up Josh, and headed to the tap room at New Belgium. The New Belgium tap room is always a hit with guests--you get three free drinks, there are always lots of fun people around, and they serve small-batch brews in the tap room that you can't find anywhere else. Finally, we had heard that Odell's brewery charges for their samples, so Josh and I had crossed it off the must-do list, but I talked to customers at New Belgium who really recommended it. We headed over there--I'm really glad we did! They don't charge very much (like $4 to $12 for a bunch of samplers) and had an amazing rhubarb beer and curry beer among great others!

We ended the night at this amazing speakeasy-style hidden bar that served great tapas. Unfortunately this is my only picture of the night (sorry that your eyes are closed, Erica!):



Believe it or not, we thought the perfect end to the night would be drinking TJOC cocktails. In fact, during the planning stages, Erica brought up drinking TJOC cocktails as a fun activity which was music to my ears. If you want to butter me up, say that we should get together and do some sort of TJOC activity. Let me tell you, mixing drinks for four people and taking photos, while progressively getting more drunk, meant that I don't have good notes or pictures of the drinks that were made. I am only counting the ones that I'm absolutely sure about.

A lot of cocktails require Sugar syrup (p. 43). Sugar syrup is really simple--I combined two parts sugar with one part water and cooked it over low heat. Extremely simple and I now have a container of it in the fridge:



The Highball (p. 59). I poured whiskey in a glass and added club soda. Either Josh or Pat drank it and said it was very tasty--the club soda cut the whiskey a little (if you don't want a straight whiskey on the rocks).



Gin & Tonic (p. 56). It's hard for me to believe that anybody likes gin, especially since when a anybody tells a story about how they can't even smell (insert alcohol) it seems to be either gin or tequila. I've never had a gin incident, I just don't like it. In fact, I think the only time I ordered gin was when I was lucky enough to take a business-class flight to Italy and found out they give you tiny free alcohols at that level (little Bombay gin bottles are particularly cute). And tonic water is one of those most vile things on earth. So I fed the gin and tonic to Josh. He wasn't sure about it but I think it was less the recipe and more the revolting taste of tonic water.



Scarlett O'Hara (p. 63). I shook Southern Comfort, cranberry juice, and lime juice over ice. I liked it--I like SoCo--but it wasn't my favorite because I'm not a huge fan of lime juice.



A Pink lady (p. 57) is gin, grenadine, and cream, shook over ice.



Erica drank this one. She said it was good, I liked that it matched her outfit, and we both felt like we were in the 1950's with our pink ladies and grasshoppers. I like pastel drinks (but don't tell anyone!).



I thought that a Grasshopper (p. 63) would be perfect to drink while Erica was drinking a pink lady. I shook creme de menthe (green, I was amazed they made it in more than one color!), creme de cacao (white because brown looks gross), and half-and-half with ice. It was really good, like a creamy Thin Mint (that is a delicious Girl Scout Cookie for those of you outside the US).



We were outside while everybody but me enjoyed a fine cigar (Josh has a humidor and an increasingly impressive collection--he is ecstatic when someone wants to smoke a cigar with him). My drink matched my outfit too!




Whiskey sour (p. 59). I shook blended whiskey (I'm sorry Erin and Heather! I used Scoresby rather than Jameson--it was cheaper and I was buying a LOT of alcohol), lemon juice, and sugar syrup with ice. Josh enjoyed it and said it was a perfect whiskey sour (I think he was exaggerating but I was glad to hear it).



I actually didn't make any notes to go with this picture--thankfully, I took a picture of the drink sitting on TJOC and could figure out that it was a Screwdriver (p. 57). I shook vodka and orange juice with ice and, apparently, decided not to serve it on ice. It was good--there isn't a whole lot to say about something as simple as orange juice and vodka mixed together. It's the tailgating breakfast of champions.



Tequila sunrise (p. 62). I stirred tequila and orange juice then poured a little grenadine over the top. It was so beautiful and looked like a perfect tequila sunrise! I have no idea who drank this. Hopefully they will comment.



I was amazed by the recipe for the Singapore sling (p. 57). It has so many things in it! I was happy to see that it gave me another use for cherry brandy, since I bought some to marinate cherries in for chocolate covered cherries, which I never ended up making. I shook gin, cherry brandy, pineapple juice, lime juice, triple sec, grenadine, and bit of bitters (I did not use benedictine--I'm not exactly sure what it is). I don't know who drank this or what it tasted like--I will report back or, hopefully, Pat or Erica will comment.



It was an amazingly fun day. I can't wait for them to come back to visit. I know I made a number of drinks that weren't photographed--for example, I'm positive I made a Sazerac because I think they are strange to drink when you aren't in New Orleans and I'm used to them being made with absinthe (not required in the TJOC recipe).

Friends, you can look forward to a night of this sort of TJOC drinking when you visit, now that I have a well-stocked liquor cabinet.

Anyone regularly drink any of these? How would you describe them? Have you gone on any of these tours? Do you want to go on them when you visit me? :)

Black pepper vodka (p. 58)

I'm not a huge drinker.

(Waits for the laughter to die down)

No, honestly, I certainly drank my weight in alcohol in college but nowadays tend only to drink when I get together with friends and almost never at home. The unintended consequence of this has been steady increase in types of alcohol in the house--I might need rum for a recipe, I buy it, and the rum sits around until it evaporates in about twenty years.

That being said, I do like a nice Bloody Mary. And I like peppered vodka in my Bloody Mary.

There are three infused vodka recipes in TJOC and they all look good (citrus vodka, tea vodka, and black pepper vodka). I decided to use the last quarter bottle of Absolut that was in the fridge to make Black pepper vodka (p. 58). It's an incredibly easy recipe.

I poured whole black peppercorns into the bottle:



Let it steep for a couple days and strained the peppercorns back out:



Yum! Extremely peppery and perfect for a Bloody Mary, if you like a nice kick. I'm definitely going to infuse more vodka because it's so simple. Any ideas of what else to mix with pepper vodka?

In other news, I've been reading Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking" and I can't recommend it enough, especially if you enjoy food science and food chemistry. I've learned all sorts of interesting random information.

NYE #1: Becker bloody bull shots (p. 57), Champagne punch (p. 65), and Glogg (p. 67)

New Year's Eve! I was going to be in Iowa for once. One of my very best friends, Rachel (who some of you may remember from Thanksgiving or my birthday) cane up with a truly terrific idea--she wanted to have a party and we could cook lots of recipes from TJOC! I thought it was a truly inspired idea and we made a boatload (well, if 16 or so fill a boat) of recipes. I'm going to break them into five posts so keep checking back!

Rachel and I made three sets of drinks for the New Year's Eve party--I will discuss them in the order I find them the most interesting. I don't usually have events with enough people for the party drinks in TJOC (ie punch).

Rachel and I had an excess of beef broth. I said "You know, TJOC has a recipe for Becker bloody bull shots (p. 57) and it uses beef broth and is kind of like a Bloody Mary". Rachel perked up--we are both huge Bloody Mary fans. I told her that I thought the recipe looked gross and she replied that it looked delicious and we should make it (we had all the ingredients). The recipe is one of those bizarre ones--tomato juice, beef consomme (or beef broth, I figured), tons of vodka, lime juice, a dash of hot sauce (or many, many dashes if you measure like Rachel), and a little black pepper:



Rachel and I were absolutely exhausted by this point and a drink was well needed:



We decided to drink this more as a drink and less as a shot. It was STOUT. Not kidding around. This is a great drink if you really like hot sauce and vodka. It didn't taste particularly beefy, so if that is scaring you away from the recipe, don't worry! Of course, if you have vegetarians at your party, you might want to warn them--there aren't usually animal products in what seems to be a Bloody Mary :)

I love champagne, I love punch, it seemed Champagne punch (p. 65) would be the perfect drink for a NYE toast.

First, we peeled and cored three pineapple.

Rachel went shopping for the first set of groceries without the list and thought "how many pineapples could this recipe possibly take". She bought two, it takes THREE! THREE PINEAPPLES! Does that seem like a lot to anyone else?



We then sprinkled a pound (yes, a pound) of confectioners' sugar over the top and let it stand for an hour.



Lemon juice, brandy, rum, curacao (actually, Grand Marnier, we traded up), and maraschino liqueur (what the heck is this? We used cherry schnapps) were added to the pineapple and powdered sugar mixture.



The whole thing sat and chilled for four hours. We then added four bottles of champagne.



It was so delicious! Nice and sweet. The pineapple was nice and punchy too--and tasty. This is the perfect drink if you don't really like alcohol because it was so sweet and easy to drink. People seem to mock punch as a innocuous drink. A drink for 15-year-olds to drink and feel naughty. And it is, if it doesn't have alcohol in it. This punch? Almost entirely alcohol.

There was one problem with the punch. Well, actually two problems.

Problem 1--the punch was easy to drink but had no liquid ingredients, other than the lemon juice, that weren't alcoholic so it was STRONG. So, it packed a punch (ha!). Problem 2--I'm allergic to fresh pineapple. That's why I had Rachel slice the pineapple. I thought about it all day. But for some reason, I drank about ten glasses of it. The next day, I was in real pain--my throat was swelled almost shut, my lips itched, my eyes itched, and so on. FOR THREE DAYS! Next time I try to eat pineapple, slap me. Or kiwi, I'm allergic to that too. So I won't be making this again :(

There are a couple of recipes in TJOC that have absolutely amazing lines. Glogg (p. 67) is one of these recipes but we will get to that later...

Glogg requires cinnamon sticks, cloves, and cardamom pods to be tied up in cheesecloth:



The packet was dropped into a mixture of tawny port, brandy, vodka, the peel of an orange, and a cup of raisins.

Getting the tawny port was not as easy as it should have been. Rachel and I went to a grocery store and looked for the port section. Not easily finding it, I asked the liquor employee. He asked me what port was. That's not a good sign! I stumbled upon it myself (in the "dessert wines" section).

TJOC recommends a large non-reactive pot. What is a reactive pot? We had no idea, we figured reactive pots would be copper, everything else is non-reactive. Does anyone know the answer to this?



It was then simmered for an hour.

And on to the best line in a long time...

"Holding the lid against the edge of the pot as a shield, hot a lighted long match near the rim of the pot until the alcohol fumes ignite."

Love it! A shield!



It was on fire! How pretty!



The glogg was strong. STRONG. Really strong. Did I mention it was strong?

There was NOTHING in the glogg except for raisins, spices, and alcohol.

I will admit to not liking the glogg much but I don't like cinnamon. It's a VERY cinnamon-y drink. Unfortunately, it was so late by the time we finished that almost nobody drank it! So Rachel packaged it up--hopefully someone got use from it, it was extremely expensive to make! And lighting it on fire wasn't a fraction as difficult as it seemed like it was going to be.