Hot Buttered Rum!

This delicious hot drink was made upon reaching the cabin at Maple Bay, where we went in late September for celebratory purposes, and for a much-needed weekend of relaxing, communing with nature (and the hammock!) and food-and-drink creation. Check out the entries on Maple Bay at Wedine. Hot buttered rum isn't too difficult to prepare, as you can see from the collage, which basically illustrates the stages step-by-step (click to enlarge). It is worth whipping up a batch if you arrive somewhere chilled after a journey and need a toasty beverage to warm you up. Very rich and tasty and perfect for autumn.

Ingredients

2/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
pinch salt
3/4 cup spiced rum
2 cups boiling water
4 sticks cinnamon

Method

Beat sugar, butter, honey and spices until smooth in large bowl. Add rum, then water, and stir until butter dissolves. Divide among four (or five, in our case) mugs and garnish with cinnamon sticks. Enjoy!

The charming wine guy at the Metropolitan

In November, Erin and I went to Seattle with no other mission than to eat, drink, and buy lots of shoes. We had some difficulty with the eating part – two of the restaurants we had really wanted to go to turned out to be closed or shut down for good – but with the drinking part of the mission we succeeded effortlessly.

One of our restaurant searches left us eventually at the Metropolitan, on the advice of our cabbie. I wasn't really in the mood for steak, but I liked the classic, authoritative feeling of the place. And we got to sit in a really cute mini booth. But the best part was the sommelier. He was inspirational enough to make it into my sketchbook. As you can see above, he was a cute old man with short gray hair, glasses, and a bow tie. And, he loved his job, I noted. He drifted from table to table, always smiling. Their wine list was seriously long. So we needed his help. I managed to narrow it down to a riesling, and he matched us up with the J. & H.A. Strub Riesling Kabinett, 2005. And we loved it. The wine guy rules.

Other notable discoveries on our drinking tour of Seattle:

• We enjoyed another Riesling the night before – American Thanksgiving, when the only restaurant open and not serving turkey was the 24 hr 13 Coins – Chateau Ste Michelle Columbia Valley Riesling 2006. This was preceded by Kim Crawford Pinot Noir from New Zealand, and followed by oversized bottles of Miller High Life...
  
• At Vons, the only bar we could find open at 6 pm on Thanksgiving, Erin had a glass of beer that was practically as tall as her and I tried one of their variations on a Manhattan – a Southern Grandfather: Jim Beam + Amaretto + a cherry. Yum.
  
• I tried Tuaca for the first time: a lightly sweet, amber Italian liqueur based on fine, cask-aged brandy, possessing a rich fruit-like flavor of vanilla and citrus. Mixed with Gin and garnished with an orange slice, I'd drink this again for sure.

That's it!

Holiday Drinks. Yum!

Here is a bottle of Advocaat, the most sought-after liqueur in Britain this Christmas! And why? All because of the 'Nigella Effect.' That's right, Nigella Lawson reminisced about Christmas Drinks Past on her new show, 'Nigella Express,' and that was all it took to get Britain out to the shops to buy 40% more Advocaat than last year.

It's all because the Dutch liqueur is an essential ingredient in a 'Snowball,' one of those sort of drinks that was popular 20 or 30 years ago, but which has since fallen out of fashion. However, Nigella single-handedly revived this cocktail by describing it in all its luscious detail, and now everyone wanted one, including my dad. Many attempts were made over successive days by both my dad and stepmum to snatch up a bottle of Advocaat, but without success, until one was finally snagged on Christmas Eve. Phew!

Advocaat is a yellow liqueur that was originally made by Dutch settlers in Suriname with avocados (hence the name), but when it was made in Holland itself, the Dutch didn't have access to those, and used thickened eggs instead. Advocaat is thus quite like eggnog, and is a love-it-or-hate-it sort of drink, whose ingredients include "a blend of egg yolks, aromatic spirits, sugar or honey, brandy, vanilla and sometimes cream (or evaporated milk)." (Thanks, Wiki).

To make a Snowball, you use one part Advocaat to three parts lemonade (in England lemonade is a fizzy, clear drink, like Sprite) and a dash of lime cordial or lime juice. Stir and pour over ice cubes in a highball glass. It's a frothy delight, I tell you!


Another drink that my dad had a hankering for was a Kir Royale, which we all know is a mixture of blackcurrant liqueur (creme de cassis) and champagne. There are lots of variations – for example, a plain Kir is made with creme de cassis and white wine, whilst a Kir Normand is made with creme de cassis and Normandy cidre. But our Kir Royale was delicious. Like grown-up Ribena. Here it is in all its burgundy loveliness.