Christmas drinks
“What would winter be without eggnog. It combines a warming drink with a whole lot of nourishment’
Hot buttered rum Another traditional hot winter drink is hot buttered rum. To make one drink, rinse a mug in hot water and shake it dry. Put in one and a quarter teaspoons of caster sugar, one inch of a cinna- mon stick (or a pinch of ground cinnamon), ameasure of rumand stir until the sugar has dissolved. Pour in hot milk, add half an ounce of butter, stir well and top off with a sprinkle of ground nutmeg. Sir Roger de Coverley gave his name not only to a
dance, but also to this hot drink. Take a bottle of red wine, a glass of port, a small measure of orange curaçao, a flat teaspoonful of ground cinnamon, six cloves and a sprinkle of grated nutmeg. Bring it all to simmering point, stirring all the while. Strain it and serve it in warmed wine glasses. Most winter drink recipes combine alcohol, sugar, citrus
fruits and spices and mostly these recipes assume you’re expecting to fill four or six glasses. For sheer excess, you have to admire the English admiral Edward Russell, the First Lord of the Admiralty at the start of the eighteenth century. He threw a party for fellow officers in 1694, when he filled his garden’s fountain with 250 gallons of brandy, 125 gallons of Malaga wine, 1,400 pounds of sugar, 2,500 lemons, 20 gallons of lime juice and five pounds each of nutmeg and cinnamon, making what has to be the biggest cocktail ever created.Apparently bartenders actually pad- dled around in a small wooden canoes, filling up guests’ cups. The party continued until they drank the fountain dry, taking them a week, with only a brief pause during a rainstorm to erect a silk canopy over the punch to keep it from getting watered down.
Spiced cider Spiced cider is another old favourite. All you need is a lit- tle piece of muslin to tie up some of the ingredients.
80 Irish Director Winter 2010
Warm four pints of cider – that’s enough to get the party started – and while it’s warm- ing add 50g of sugar. Now put half a tea- spoon of whole allspice, one teaspoon whole cloves, one cinnamon stick and one quar- tered orange onto your muslin and tie it up. Add the muslin package to the warming cider. When it’s hot, remove the muslin package and serve.
Eggnog
And what would winter be without eggnog? It combines a warming drink with a whole lot of nourishment. When I was a child, thiswaswhat Italians gave to peoplewhowere convalescing. On these islands it’s always been a warming winter drink, and this recipe is designed to do just that. You’ll need 12 egg yolks, five cloves, 400ml of whole milk, 400ml of cream, 300ml of rum, 175g sugar, two and a half teaspoons of vanilla essence, one teaspoon of ground cin- namon and three quarters of a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Beat the egg yolks, the sugar, the milk and the cream
together well. Add the spices and half the vanilla essence while still beating well. Next you need to cook the eggs, which will thicken up the mixture. If you heat the mix- ture in a saucepan you’ll need to keep stirring and watch very carefully, as themix can easily curdle. It’smuch safer to do this in a bain-marie, which you can create easily enough by putting your mixing bowl into a saucepan that it sits high on. Let a little water simmer at the bottom of the pot and the bowl above will be warmed only by steam, which makes the heat easier to control. As soon as your eggnog thickens, take it from the heat, add in the rum and the remaining vanilla essence and put the mixture into the fridge. Let it cool and serve it in a glass. No one needs a recipe for an Irish coffee or a hot
whiskey, but when it comes to thawing out, both are hard to beat.With all these winter-warming delights available to the kitchen alchemist, you can bring a glow to those hard winter days ahead. Have a warm and merry Christmas season.
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