There are certain gifts I seem to receive every year at Christmas. Socks (boo). DVDs (better). Booze (much better). Chocolate (now we're getting somewhere). But I think it's safe to say that this Christmas was the first time I'd been given one of these...
Guitar shaped moulds... but what for? Jelly? Ice? Little ice lollies? Probably all of the above. But I decided that the latter option would be the most useful.
Given the shape of the moulds, I had to think of a suitably rock n roll flavour for the lollies. So... what is the most rock n roll drink? Jack Daniels? Tequila? Jager? Beer? All wrong - the most rock n roll drink known to man is, without doubt, Snakebite and Black. An ice lolly mixture has to be sweeter and more intense than a drink would be, so I put in more blackcurrant than you'd usually use, and also added a splash of apple juice.
As more observant readers will have noticed, there are moulds for an electric guitar, a bass guitar, and an acoustic. It seemed sensible to eat the electric-guitar-shaped-lolly first, since acoustics are for school kids, grandpas, and dorks like James Blunt. And the bass is for simpletons who can only manage one note at a time.
The next time we get anything resembling Summer weather, I'll be making another batch of these suckers.
Taste
Classification
Do you know the feeling when you get to the bar and can't decide what to order - a beer or a cocktail?
Well... me neither, I usually know exactly what I want. But I needed an excuse to combine these two unlikely bedfellows, and I can't currently think of a better one.
Beer geeks will scoff at you. Cocktail aficionados will turn their noses up at you. But here is a selection of beery cocktails, ranging from crass to classy (by my standards), adding some of my own twists along the way.
Honourable Mentions
Some cocktails were considered, but didn't make the cut...
Snakebite and Black - a tasty combination of lager, cider and blackcurrant, which allows sixteen-year-olds to pour alcohol down their necks as quickly as possible. But you don't need me to show you how to make one.
Michelada - mixture of beer, lime juice, tabasco and worcester sauce... tomato juice and tequila are also common ingredients. Popular in Mexico, this is one of the most common beer cocktails. Not included here because it sounds absolutely disgusting.
Hangman's Blood - there are various recipes, but the most common seems to contain no less than five shots - whisky, brandy, gin, rum, and port - topped up with Guiness. I must admit I am curious to try this, but despite having all the ingredients at home, I just couldn't bring myself to do it.
So onto the main event. To assist me with the tasting, I had the help of a special guest, FeedTheTang.
Car Bomb
1 measure Baileys
1 measure Irish whiskey
Half pint of Guinness
Fill a double shot glass with Baileys and Irish whiskey, and drop the whole thing into half a pint of Guinness (in a pint glass). I used Guinness Foreign Extra, just for fun. You have to drink it quickly before it curdles... in just a few seconds, solid lumps of brown crud start to form. Yum!
Tang's Tasting Notes : "There's no way I'm drinking that. No way."
Alcoholic Dr Pepper
2 measures amaretto
2 measures cherry beer
Lager
Coke
Simply put the amaretto and cherry beer into a glass, and top up with equal quantities of lager and coke. It really does taste a lot like Dr Pepper!
Tang's Tasting Notes : "Very sweet. Tastes more like a fizzy drink than a cocktail."
Frozen Beer Margarita
2 measures tequila
1 measure Cointreau
4 measures lager
3 measures 7up/sprite
Water
1 lime
Blend the flesh of a lime with the other ingredients except the water. Put in freezer - the alchohol will not freeze solid, so you will be able to easily mash it up with a fork after it comes out. Add a little water, and shake it all up to make a slush.
For that authentic touch of luxury, coat the rim of the glass with lime & salt. Serve with a lime wedge. This recipe makes 2 small glasses of delicious margarita!
Tang's Tasting Notes : "Very nice! Sour. Strong. Not too sweet."
Blood and Sand
1 measure scotch
1 measure vermouth
1 teaspoon brown sugar
2 measures blood orange juice
Cherry beer
Shake the scotch, vermouth, sugar, and the blood orange juice, until the sugar is dissolved. I don't have a cocktail shaker, so I used a plastic bottle. Pour into a glass and top up with cherry beer.
Tang's Tasting Notes : "Not bad. Actually quite nice. Tastes very alcoholic."
So, the Margarita was the clear winner. Possibly the only drink here that transcended the novelty of the original premise, and something I know I'll be drinking again!
Classification
I like Christmas cake. I do. But you can have too much of a good thing. And when my mother presented me with a whole cake on boxing day (complete with 1970s decorations), I knew I would struggle to get through the whole thing.
So here are three ideas for using up all that extra fruit cake.
1. Fridge Cake
This is a simple one. Melt down some leftover Christmas chocolate with some butter, and stir in chopped Christmas cake, and whatever other stuff you have lying around. I threw in some chopped pistachios and hazlenuts, some "Festive Friend" chocolate biscuits, and chocolate covered cherries.
Not forgetting my special ingredient - dried cherries soaked in brandy and sugar.
I poured into a lined tin, and left in the fridge until set.
Taste
Classification
2. Baked Alaska
I started by soaking some frozen raspberries in brandy (my old friend, Tesco Napoleon Brandy, £10 for 1 litre) and sugar. I stirred the raspberry mixture into some vanilla ice cream, and the returned it to the freezer to set until hard.
Meanwhile, I pressed some slices of cake into a ring, and soaked with some of the remaining alcoholic raspberry juice. I put it in the oven on a fairly high heat, until it became quite hard and biscuity. Once it was cooled, it was the perfect base for the baked alaska.
I put the ice cream - now laced with booze and raspberries - onto the base, and covered with meringue. Then put in the oven on a high heat until brown.
Taste
Classification
3. Trifle
I lined a bowl with slices of Christmas cake, then poured over the remainer of the juice from the cherries and the raspberries, along with an extra glug of brandy. I added a few spoons of jam, and the rest of the fruit.
I topped with custard and whipped cream. Finally I sprinkled it with some chopped hazlenuts and some grated chocolate.
Taste
Classification
Conclusion
The chocolate fridge cake was the definite winner. A big lump of chocolate and butter with a hit of brandy was always going to be tough to beat. It also requires the least effort of the three desserts!
Once upon a time, there was a bar in South London called The Funky Munky (cool name if you're 7 years old, I suppose). It was one of the few decent late night drinking options round here, with cheesy music, a laid back clientele of student doctors and nurses, and a well stocked bar.
One of the house specials was an alcoholic chocolate bar milkshake. Choose from their menu of chocolate bars, select a shot of your choice, and they'd whizz it up into a milkshake before your eyes. But the Funky Munky is no more (replaced by a bar specialising in craft beers, with an even worse name), so if I wanted to drink one of these, I had no choice but to make it myself. After all, I have a sweet tooth. I like alcohol. I like milkshake. It all added up.
Milkshake 1: Reeses, Baileys, Vanilla vodka
I didn't really have a strategy... I just threw the 3 peanut butter cups into the blender, with two scoops of ice cream, a glug of milk, a spoon of peanut butter, some chocolate syrup, a measure of Baileys, and a measure of absolut vanilla - I'm sorry, "vanilia". I turned the blender up high until it looked like all the bits had disappeared.
It tasted good. It was obviously sickly sweet, but quite more-ish at the same time. The only downside was that despite being in the blender for quite a while, there were still quite a lot of bits floating in it. The quantity was OK, it just about filled a medium size tumbler, which seemed about right if I was going to try a few different combinations...
Milkshake 2: Bounty and rum
Same method as before, except using a bounty bar and a generous slug of Sailor Jerry rum! Coconut and rum seemed like classic combination. But this one really didn't work very well... there were even more bits than the first one, and there were large sticky blobs of coconut stuff at the bottom of the blender. Frankly, a waste of the bounty bar, and a waste of rum.
Milkshake 3: Orange Aero and Cointreau
I was not going to make the same mistake again. I broke up the orange Aero, and melted it with some warm milk, whisking until it was smooth. Then waited for it to come back down to room temperature, and put it in the blender with the ice cream, chocolate syrup, and of course, the Cointreau.
This one was the best - a smooth, chocolatey milkshake with a nice orange zing. But these things are just so damn sweet... and by this point I was feeling really quite sick. And slightly drunk. Nevertheless, I bravely finished the third milkshake... and then went for a lie down.
I'm not sure I can totally recommend these. First of all, I have to wonder how the punters at the Munky drank these things without puking all over the dancefloor. And I think you'd get better results without using a solid chocolate bar - OK so the orange aero one turned out well, but melting the thing down felt like cheating, and not really in the spirit of the endeavour. But they certainly delivered on the filth front... there can be no question of that.
Taste
