Day 22: Accidental Storm
Theodore Roosevelt once said “Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don't have the strength.” That seems to be the situation we are in, but can we make lemonade when we are on our last lemon? Welcome to day 22 thirsty readers. The world maybe be shut down, but we keep moving, with a stir, a shake, or in this case, a blender. I felt like we had gone too long without a frozen drink, so lets get to cooling off, even if this isn't the vacation we chose.
Today's drink started out as completely different drink altogether. It was a typical cocktail-making day, just like any other. I was making one of my frozen hurricane recipes from long ago. Most of the ingredients were already in the blender, so I reached for the two bitters that were called for, both Angostura and Peychaud's. This is where everything took a turn. I hadn't noticed when I took the caps off, but there were no dashers on either bottle! I must have removed them when filling smaller dasher bottles and just forgot. As you can imagine, I ended up with way more "flavoring" than I had intended. When life hands you lemons, right? I just blended up everything already in the blender, and tried it out. Though it was a bit too bitters heavy for what I intended, it gave me an idea for a new drink, one where the heavy bitters is intentional. To balance this out, I added some Chinese five-spice as well. The result was something so different from the original, but in the best of ways. Sometimes life throws us a lot of unexpected curve-balls. The only thing we can do is try and make the best of everything, just like this drink taught me. Isn't our current situation a bit of an accidental storm?
Accidental Storm
1oz Aged Barbados Rum (I broke out the Mount Gay XO for this one, and I regret nothing!)
1oz Medium-Body White Rum (Marsh House has been really doing the trick for me in this category.)
.5oz Overproof Jamaican Rum (I wanted some serious flavor in this drink, so I went with Rum Fire.)
1oz Fassionola
.75oz Chinese 5-Spice Honey
.75oz Lemon
.25oz Angostura Bitters
.25oz Peychaud's Bitters
6 1-inch Fresh Pineapple Chunks
2 cups crushed ice
small pinch of salt (The salt works as a binding agent for blended drinks)
Large Snifter or Hurricane Glass
In blender, combine all ingredients and blend at high speed until fully incorporated and smooth. This is a good time to get to know your blender, and how it functions for frozen drinks.
Pour into snifter or hurricane glass.
Garnish with pineapple fronds, parasol, lemon, and dried spices.
5-Spice Honey
2 tsp Fennel Seed
1 tsp Szechuan Peppercorns
1 Cinnamon Stick
2 Star Anise
4 Whole Cloves
1.5 cups Water
Honey
In sauce pot, lightly toast spices.
Add water, and bring to a boil.
Simmer until you achieve your desired level of 5-spice tea.
Fine strain.
Combine 1 part spice tea with 2 parts honey.
Maybe Teddy was right. Maybe this is exactly the time we keep our heads up and show how courageous we can truly become in this new world gone mad. That's all i have to say for today. You didn't come here for my opinions anyways. You probably just came for the drinks! That's why I'm here everyday. I'll see you all tomorrow to sip, savor, repeat, and keep shaking.