The Spirit World

Woo hoo! What a bunch of festive drinks you now have for your holiday celebrations! There’s a little bit of everything and something for everyone in this batch of beverages! I think you’ll really enjoy looking through this month’s submissions. Twenty five people submitted recipes and a few of those doubled up so there are nearly thirty to choose from. And how appropriate that we are posting this on the Drinks Around the World day! As you’ll see, while many of us associate the holidays with snow and chilly temps, we will be reminded that isn’t the case everywhere…

Before diving in go pour yourself something - preferably something you can sip. This is going to take you a little time to get through!

[Editor’s Public Service Announcement: When contributing to one of these large events it is best to follow the submission rules. By that I mean how you notify the host and what information you send in. We had a few rebels this time but I think I caught all the entries and I apologize if I missed anyone. When the Imbibe folks host this next one, do them a big favor and follow their requested procedure. (Editor steps down off of soap box.)]

I thought we might end up with several duplicates but we didn’t. The largest overlap was with Egg Nog, as you might expect, but each of the recipes is slightly different. Then there was a surprise category where we have several similar recipes submitted - we’ll get to that in a moment.

I’m going to try to do this summary in some semblance of order - we’ll see how well that actually works but I’m going to try.

As you will remember I said that anyone who submitted recipes that were good for a crowd - this is the season of entertaining, after all - would get bonus points. Well, as you know we don’t rate or grade your submissions as the idea is just to share and inspire so how would anyone get bonus points? By being listed first, that’s how!

So we are going to start with those drinks you can make up in a batch and we’ll start with the cold drinks first.

[Editor’s note: Several of the recipes you will see listed here contain raw eggs. As you know there can be some dangers associated with using raw eggs and we urge you to follow all safety precautions when making any of these recipes or use a pasteurized egg product.

Cold Drinks for a Crowd

As I mentioned we had several Egg Nog recipes so let’s take a look at those. The first recipe was submitted by Thomas who writes for our sister publication, Paper Palate. At some point Thomas plans to actually write about the cookbook that spawned this particular recipe but until he does we hosted his entry on our site. Thomas calls it The Real Eggnog. His version contains the entire liquor cabinet! Okay, not quite. On the other hand, Michael from A Dash of Bitters decided to try Alton Brown’s Egg Nog recipe which has very little alcohol, comparatively. And then there’s Anita’s, from Married with Dinner’s recipe which seems to be somewhere in between the two, although falling more to the light side.

Our next set of big batch beverages fall into the punch category and they all seem to have rum as their primary spirit but still there are some interesting variations. Two of the recipes come to us from our friends at eGullet. The first offering comes to us from Erik Ellestad, who kindly got the ball rolling for us over on the forums. His Rum Punch uses a mix of rhum, rum and cachaça - which is also sort of a rum. The next version is from David Wondrich with his recipe called Regent’s Punch. His version also uses a couple varieties of rum (and did I mention for both recipes I had to look up some of the ingredients!) be he also includes cognac. And rounding out our rum punch recipes is the illustrious Mixology Monday founder, Paul Clarke from The Cocktail Chronicles, with his Christmas Rum Punch! I think this version should be served only after dark - all the better to see the flaming finale for this number!

This next group is the set that surprised me, although once I read the posts and realized who was submitting them it all made lots more sense! While those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are making sure our long-johns are ready for use, those on the other side of the equator are basking in the sun’s warm rays. It makes perfect sense then that two of the three sangria/wine punches came from folks in Australia. The first entry comes from Haalo of Cook (almost) Anything at Least Once. Haalo decided that mulled wine is a wonderful holiday beverage but at this time of year something chilled seemed much more enticing. And so she took a traditional mulled wine and made Iced Mulled Wine. Seems pretty clever to me. Anna from morsels and musings (and also from Australia) had a very similar idea with her, Chilled Mulled Riesling . As you can tell by the title she used Riesling while Haalo used a Pinot Noir for her base. Anna is still a little undecided about her version though - while no one hated it, not everyone loved it and she made some interesting observations about the interaction of some of the ingredients. Our third entry in this grouping comes from Seattle (of all places!). This is one of two entries from Janelle of TalkofTomatoes. She actually concocted her Brandied Berried Sangria back in September but thought it would also make a nice holiday beverage. We’ll get to her other “official” entry a bit later.

Hot Drinks for a Crowd

Wow! Are you hanging in there? We’ve covered a lot of ground but there is lots more to go! Let’s take a look at hot drinks that can be made up in batches.

I was surprised that we only had one Hot Buttered Rum entry and it came from Jimmy from Jimmy’s Cocktail Hour. Not just any HBR though, Jimmy wants you to use Zacapa Centenario 23 Años rum - okay then! And Jimmy’s recipe can actually be used to make just one cup or many. You mix up a big batch of batter and then use it as needed.

That is similar to Robert from The Spirit World’s (hey, that’s us!) entry but he decided to go with the Tom and Jerry. I thought it was very coincidental that he chose Tom and Jerry as that’s my family’s traditional Christmas Eve beverage, too! Although we use whiskey instead of rum in our version.

Rounding out the big batch o’ hot drinks category is You Can’t Make Everything from Scratch’s, Matthew with one of his entries, Hot Mulled Cider. And as a bonus, this drink could also be made as a Drinks for the Designated Driver choice as the cider is mulled in a batch but the alcohol isn’t added until it goes into the cup.

Single Serving Hot Drinks

We only have a couple entries in this category. The first is from Ben at Garnish Bar. His Irish Chocolate Velvet is his first ever MxMo entry and is it a good one! Combining hot chocolate and Irish Whiskey, I’d have to take a little nap after consuming this one!

Seamus of bunnyhugs (how’s that for a blog name?) also provides us with a single serving hot drink, the Sleigh Flip. This must be his first entry, too, as this is a brand new blog. The Sleigh Flip brings together a few unusual ideas. First it entails heating beer. To the warmed beer, rum and Pimento Dram or Benedictine are added for additional flavor. Seamus provides a few options for alternatives in case not all ingredients are readily available in your area.

Chilly and Single - Drinks That Is!

Okay! We are heading into the home stretch but we still have miles to go! (That translates into roughly 14 drinks to go. Hmmm. We’re about half way at this point.)

We’re heading back to eGullet and first to Katie Loeb’s Spicy Pilgrim. I just like the name! It seems the folks on eGullet like rum but Katie mixes it up a bit with the addition of Poire William liqueur and Pama pomegranate liqueur, among other things. Andy Arrington also has Poire William Liqueur on his mind but he mixes it up with Calvados, Allspice liqueur, Vermouth and more to make La Réveillon Cocktail. Lots of good discussion about what he thought did/didn’t work with this drink, too.

Kurtis Trede from The Handy Snake (read the quote at the top and you’ll get the connection…) sent me a note saying that I might not think his drink was wintery. Who the heck cares what I think? This is about what you think says “festive”. And Kurtis might find I’m more open-minded than he’s given me credit for! ;-> He bring us the Manhattan Special and the addition of Benedictine is sure to make it just that.

Next up is Sarah’s Pomegranate Champagne Cocktail, a Champagne Cocktail with a twist. She gives you the details on her blog, Avenue Food and mentions her inspiration is Angel’s Share, a little place in New York that was on my list but I didn’t quite get to on my last trip there. Now I’m even more inspired to visit next time I’m in town!

I like the name of this next cocktail, the Cherry Gin Fizz - it just sounds happy! It is brought to you by Brilynn on her blog Giant Empanadas. Now that Brilynn is a smart one! She is double dipping using this recipe not only for MxMo X but also for Paper Chef 23! Wow - 23 - we need to work on catching up! Then again WBW (which I’m hosting today!!!) is on #28. Amazing.

Now we pop over to Slakethirst where C has mixed up the Pepper Delicious #2 (don’t confuse this with #1, please!). Based on Aquavit and made with a red bell pepper it sounds like it even looks holidayish.

Brandon from Brandon Eats, brings us a little blast from the past as he reminisces about Hogan’s Heroes as the introduction to his Sleigh Ride to Hell. Just a simple little drink really - vodka and Rumple Minz. But if you are feeling a little stressed you can relieve it here when you “Smash (with manic glee) a few candy canes to powder”. Okay then, between the “exercise” and the drink you should be pretty relaxed!

Next we close out our double plays. Janelle’s second (and “official”) offering for this event is the Christmas Kazi, made with sparkling cranberry. Matthew’s second entry is the Cranberry and Amaretto made with, uh, cranberry and amaretto.

This is the first we’ve heard from Matt who says “My Bar is Your Bar“. But it’s not his fault this is the first we’ve heard from him as he submitted two drinks, too. They both just happen to be single servings cold drinks so it took us a while to get to them. His first drink is based on Champagne - always a festive option at this time of year - and is called the D’Artagnan. He says this is the “nice” cocktail. And then he moves right on to the “naughty”cocktail, the The Mint Chocolate Martini. I don’t know why he says it’s naughty - vanilla vodka, creme de cacao and creme de menthe sound pretty nice to me!

Darcy from The Art of Drink features the Feliz Natal for his cocktail. Now this drink includes everything but the kitchen sink! Port, amaretto, cherry brandy and more make up this Portuguese influenced cocktail. Check out the post and you’ll see why all the ingredients play a role in this drink.

Candy Cane Martinis were what Barbie from barbie2be made for a recent holiday gathering. These sound an awful lot like Brandon’s Sleigh Ride to Hell but in a much nicer way!

And finally, (unless I’ve missed someone and please let me know if I did….) I’m finishing with next month’s host, Siobhan from Imbibe Unfiltered. Their offering for this month can also be used as a Drink for the Designated Driver - unless you punch it up, that is. Their Ruby Sparkler starts as unleaded beverage but they give you several options for customizing your cocktail. I like options!

Now, I just happen to know that the theme for next month is Winter Warmers so stay tuned to Imbibe Unfiltered for all the details.

Okay, boys and girls - it’s a wrap! Thanks for playing this month and thanks for reading all the way to the end! We’ll see you all next month with a cozy drink in our hands!