Christmas Eggnog (Tara Style)

It's that most wonderful time of the year, and what better way to celebrate than with a lovely glass of heady, well-spiced eggnog! The drink isn't very popular in Australia, as it's mostly associated with cold weather. I can understand why, the flavours are warm and spicy. 

But the thing is.. Eggnog is refrigerated, so it's very appropriate for our climate. Time to get 'noggy me thinks!

As the name suggests, this tasty beverage contains eggs, so vegans beware, you're in for a scare! Luckily my housies and I are the proud owners of 3 happy chooks who provide us with all the eggs we need. They also get to rome free in the garden along with their guardian and all-round lazy-bones friend Bobby.

Bobby-cat, Martha, June & Peggy

Most 'nog recipes will suggest you use brandy in your mix, but I opted for sherry. Not only did I already own it, but I find that it matches really well with the flavour of egg yolks in drinks (don't be too scared by the thought of yolks!). I used Ramos Pinto, a Portuguese sherry because I had it, you know, lying around. I also used my Home Spiced Rum to shake things up and make it nice and christmas-like. You can use normal rum, bourbon or cognac if you like.

Don't be worried if you don't have the exact alcoholic ingredients that I use for everything. I just happen to be in the fortunate position that I've had a lot of alcohol given to me over the years of working in the industry, and haven't had the time to drink it all yet!

I made a BIG batch of the stuff so I would have enough to take to a dinner party, and still enjoy it at home with some more good friends. It's the festive season, and I'll take any excuse to get festive.. Especially left-over eggnog.  "Woops! I made too much.. Looks like we're getting drunk again!"  ** YAY! **

Ingredients

The original recipe for this came from a site called Eggnog Recipe. I tweaked their Traditional Eggnog to my own liking. There are so many more types of 'nog in there. I encourage you to look around.. but still make my one, 'cos it's the best.

10 eggs (separated)

400ml thickened cream

400ml full cream milk

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

200ml Spiced Rum

100ml Sherry

Method

In theory you need 3 bowls to make eggnog, but I managed easily with 2. You also need to allow about 7 hrs before you want to actually drink it, most of that being chill time (you chill, the nog chills. Good times all 'round)

1  Separate your eggs and put the egg-whites in the fridge for later. Then add yolks and sugar to a mixing bowl and beat until the mixture is stiff.

2  Add sherry and rum slowly, mixing as you go.

3  Cover this mixture and put it in the fridge. Leave to chill for 6 hours (this is also your chill time, so go read a book, fight crime, anything awesome and relaxing)

4  About 30-45mins before you want to serve it up get your egg whites into another mixing bowl and beat them until stiff peaks form. Fold this into your yolky mixture.

What can I say? Other than.. my peaks, well, they're STIFF!

5  Clean up your egg white bowl and put in your cream, beat the cream until thick. You want it to just fall off a spoon. If you get it to scone 'n' jam consistency you've gone too far. Start again in this case. You're better off having it 'underbeaten' than 'overbeaten'. Fold the cream into your mixture and then transfer to a jug.

6  Give the jug a quick whisk to make sure everything is combined properly and so you get a nice frothy head. At this stage your drink should feel nice and thick to pass the whisk through. Pour into vessels of your choice and grate some fresh nutmeg over the top (ground nutmeg can also be sprinkled on if it's what you have).

7  Enjoy with friends! Below are some happy snaps from my second round of 'noggy good times. Drink it responsibly, maybe with some sweet treats. We had ours with lovely marzipan filled Stollen. A bit of a Northern Hemisphere style christmas treat, but hey I'm too poor for prawns!

Stollen and smiles, now that's what I'm talkin' about!

MERRY XMAS EVERYBODY!!

See you in 2012

-xx-

How To: DIY Spiced Rum!

Spiced rum is a relatively new craze taking over our tastebuds, and many bars around the traps have taken to making and sometimes ageing their own. You may have heard of popular brands such as Sailor Jerry and Captain Morgan's Spiced Gold.

I personally love an espresso martini with Sailor Jerry. Spiced rum can do great things for many of your favourite rum drinks. It adds a flavour complexity and sweetness that can often take away some of the "burn" you may experience when drinking rum.

In the spirit (get it, spirit) of making your drinks at home Christmassy and festive, I've decided to show you how I went about making my own spiced rum and how easy it is to make yours too. 

Don't get me wrong, the guys from Captain Morgan and Sailor Jerry have their shit together. Their rums are fantastic. But if you have some rum sitting around at home, why not give it a go?!

The first thing you need is (quite obviously) rum. I would suggest using a Jamaican rum because they have a more fruity taste, but any entry level rum will do, but please do not use Bundaberg Rum. This rum has its place (in a pub on tap), but no place here. It has characteristics that are not becoming of spiced rum.. I will touch on them soon in an upcoming post. I have decided to use Appleton Estate VX, a lovely Jamaican rum with big, bold, fruity flavours and a whole lot of balls (strength and taste!). 

I encourage anyone travelling overseas to pick up a bottle of rum Duty-Free on their way home because there are just SO many good reasons to have a (1L) bottle of rum lying around. In this case, mine is coming very much in handy!

So let's get into it.. Check out just how easy it is to have a tasty alternative at home!

Ingredients

200ml Rum (you can make as much as you like, just increase your spices as you increase your rum)

1 Birds eye chilli

1 Clove

2 Pods green cardamom

1 Pod black cardamom

1 Star anise

Caraway (about enough to cover your pinky nail)

1/4 Vanilla pod (sliced open vertically)

1 Cinnamon quill

Method

1.  Slice chilli in half and crack your cardamom pods

2.  Add all ingredients and rum to a jar (or any airtight vessel), and close the lid

3.  Put your jar somewhere warm (on top of your TV, coffee machine etc.). In Queensland 

        it's very possible to leave it in your house and have the same effect. I just left mine on           

        the kitchen bench where it got some sun, definitely enough warmth to have an effect in

        summer.

4.  Take out the chilli after one day, and leave the rest of the spices for 4 days. Fine strain 

         the rest and you're good to go!

You can try your own set of spices. Mine are not the steadfast rule for spiced rum.. Some other suggestions would be:

- Citrus peel (orange, lemon, grapefruit)

- Coffee beans

- Cocoa beans

- Anise

- Fennel

- Dark sugar

- Nutmeg

I would only suggest that you remove coffee or cocoa beans after 1 day of soaking, as the flavour can be overwhelming if they are left too long. Any dry ingredient you can think of just might work. This is a little like a choose your own adventure rum! 

It makes me happy to think that you can take this guide and go your own rummy way, so good luck!!

x

Spiced & Boozy Apricots

Somebody once told me that making cocktails was like cooking with Alcohol. For example: when the measurements are wrong your cake doesn't rise and if you put too much olive brine in a dirty martini the result is hideous. I like the idea that cooking and cocktail making can be just as intricate.

I love being in the kitchen almost as much as I love being behind a bar, and there’s nothing I like more than serving up tasty morsels for my friends. 

I’m not as adventurous or quite as skilled as my housemates, but it should be noted that we all LOVE to cook, and we LOVE to eat and we LOVE to drink. So what’s a lady to do? Combine them all! 

My last bartending gig was a year and a half at a beautiful venue called Laruche. Whilst working there I came to appreciate the amazing things that alcohol can do to compliment a good meal, and I'm not talking just a nice glass of wine. I’m talking sherry glazed quail and Jagermeister ice cream. Om nom nom!

This time of year our house becomes a preserving factory. Relish, jam, chutney, mayo and the list will go on and on. I decided to try preserving whole apricots in rum and sugar with a few spices mixed in too. They turned out great! 

Here is the recipe so you can try it at home too. Not a rum fan? That’s cool.. You can try a plethora of other alcohol, and even different fruits. My only advice is to make sure the alcohol content is high in whatever you use (> 30%) so the fruit doesn’t expire early.

Try this or your own combo. Different spices, fruits, types of sugar.. the possibilities are endless (and delicious!).

Ingredients

1kg fresh apricots (pitted)

2 measures white sugar (I used a teacup, but you know, a measuring cup will do!) 

2 measures water

Peel of ¼ of a lemon

1 cinnamon quill

4 cloves

10 black peppercorns

3 bay leaves (dried) or 1 fresh leaf

4 dashes Angostura Orange bitters

100ml dark rum (I've used Havana Club Añejo Reserva)

Method

1. Pit your apricots. I have added a little tutorial here. If you can't master it, just cut them in half and cut your cooking time in half.

2. Combine water and sugar and bring to the boil, add pitted apricots, bitters and spices and turn down to simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Remove apricots from liquid and leave on a plate to cool. Add rum to boiling mixture and simmer for a further 10 minutes. Leave in pot to cool.

4. Place apricots in a sterile jar with cinnamon, bay leaves, pepper, lemon peel and cloves. 

5. Fill with cooled liquid from pot, straining through cheese cloth to keep it clear.

Refrigerate & enjoy over ice cream, with cheese or maybe even in a pie.. YUUUUUUUM!!

More boozy cooking adventures coming soon x

Bartender Appreciation Day

My favourite spiced rum has decided that today is Bartender Appreciation Day.. 

So here you go folks, follow just one of these rules and you'll make me a happy camper:

Have a great weekend!

x

How To #1: Tasting

What happens when you drink your booze too quickly.

When I first started out in the world of bartending, a man named Dean Callan was most horrified when in a tasting I simply picked up the glass of spirit and threw it down my gullet. I winced immediately at the deep burn of gin on the back of my throat.. 

This, he explained, was very bad etiquette.

I was embarrassed, and my throat was raspy. My first drink tarnished the rest of the alcohol I drank that day. 
And I drank a lot (you can imagine my disappointment!).

I don’t expect professionalism the first time you try new alcohol, and I certainly don’t want you to look like a complete twat in front of your friends, but the following tips should help you to appreciate your drink. After all, you probably just shelled out your hard earned $$ for it!

The following steps can be used for straight spirits, wine and fortified wines. I’ll add a little extra on the end for tasting cocktails and such.

It was a fine summer's afternoon when writing this, so I decided to set up my Mexi-blanket (bought home from my travels) and sip on some tequila. I have a lovely bottle of Casa Noble and although it already comes in a lovely ceramic (no longer available) bottle, I like to think I'm  high class. So like anyone high class I keep it in a decanter that was given to me by my lovely friends.

Casa bottle versus my sweet decanter (Thank you Alicia & Fauvey!)

So pour yourself a glass of your favourite spirit, or just a nice glass of wine and let's have a drink together  : )

Step 1: Have a look

This might be hard if you’re having a drink over the rocks, so I suggest you look at your alcohol before adding ice if you can. Otherwise swirl your drink like a boss and move to step 2.

Take your glass into your hand and look through the liquid, slowly spinning the glass in your hand. As the liquid falls away a “tide mark” will be left.

Look at how the alcohol runs down the glass. This is commonly called ‘legs’.

In easy terms: the longer persisting the legs, generally the better. This is a common way to tell if wine is good or bad, but works with spirits too. It doesn’t work so well with liqueurs, as the high sugar content gives them Beyonce thighs all the time.

See the similarity? (aka very good tequila)

Step 2: Get your nose in there!

It’s important to prepare our palate for what’s to come, and the olfactory (sense of smell) does that quite well for us. Think about smelling a Sunday roast as you walk in the house. Without even seeing it, you can already taste the gravy. With booze it’s much the same.

I stress this to you now, when smelling (nosing) straight spirits:

DO NOT BREATH THROUGH YOUR NOSE!!! 

This probably seems backwards, but trust me, your nose will thank me!

Place your nose over the glass and breath through your mouth. 

When drinking alcohol your nose is just as important as your mouth when tasting anything!

If you simply open your mouth now and breath in, you will notice that air moves through your nose as well. This is all you need to smell straight spirits, as the vapour is pungent and delicious! With wine and fortified wine you don’t really need to breath through your mouth because the alcohol content is much lower.

Open mouth remember!

You may notice that you begin to salivate. This is AWESOME, because it means your mouth is ready!

Step 3: Sip & Swirl

Yay! We’re finally here. You can actually drink! But don’t swallow just yet. Let the spirit roll around in your mouth. You can even hold it there and breath in through your nose (as long as the burn isn’t too much!). Otherwise just swallow slowly and let the burn fill your esophagus. This will help with your next sip because it won’t hurt. 

 Delicious right?

Step 4: Repeat (get tipsy!)

After you’ve taken a sip try nosing (smelling) the drink again, and you may find that you can smell things that weren’t there before. 

After that it’s up to you. Get your drink on or mull over your fine beverage. You may also try adding a dash of water to the straight spirit, which can actually help to open up the flavours.

Tasting cocktails:

All you really need to do is take a big wiff (smell with your mouth closed) of these gems, but it might be wise to check the position of your nose for each one. 

Straight up cocktails (served ‘up’ in a martini glass, champagne flute or coupette) require you to have your nose over the center of the glass, just as it would be while you are drinking it. This is why a bartender will be acutely offended when you ask for a straw with your Cosmopolitan. 

I strongly suggest you don’t drink something like this with a straw, as the idea is that when you are taking a sip you are also breathing in through your nose (much like the nosing part of this instruction) and so you will actually miss out on half of the drinking experience.

Many other cocktails will put the aromas right out there for you (mint sprigs on mojitos, or the sweet smell of a cherry for example), which can really help the drinking experience. So try not to take it out, eat it prematurely or leave it on the bar.

If you don’t like straight spirits, that’s ok with me. But maybe think about what’s in what you’re drinking and work your way there.

Start by lowering the amount of mixer with each drink (until you have your scotch with a dash of dry for example). 

This can take time, but hey, if it leads to more drinking, then I’m all for it.

-xx-

Welcome!

Hello there friends and soon to be allies!

I’d like to welcome you to the first of many posts about the wonderful world of alcoholic beverages and your friendly local bar-keep.

My name is Tara, and I’ve been working in bars and pubs for around 6 years. I’ve done everything from pokie payouts and pulling beers to cracking cans at festivals and making delicious cocktails in (what I think are) some of Brisbane’s finest establishments. I’ve had the privilege to work with, and competing against, some of the best bartenders in the country. I haven’t wasted a second of that time. I’ve learnt a lot and I consider myself well versed enough to help you through a haze of new products, bars and bartender pick-up lines (they’ll get ya!).

From this..

 To this..

I’ve recently changed sides and now order drinks rather than making them. This has given me a newfound understanding of how intimidating a 100 drink cocktail list or a bartender scoffing at an order of vodka, lime and soda can be. I also know that it doesn’t have to be this hard! I’m passionate about the customer always getting what they want out of a night on the town. For this reason I’m hoping my pearls of wisdom can help you spend less time deciding and more time drinking!

While this blog is for anyone from a curiosity to a general interest, it might be a bit too beginner for those of you with greater experience. That said, feel free to jump in with suggestions and questions! This blog is about bridging the gap between customer and tender—and why not? You, the customer, should have a good idea of what's being put in front of you.

This is about helping those who love going out for good drinks to find what they’re looking for. It’s for anyone starting their journey into the world of cocktails, fine spirits and even a cold schooner of beer. All are welcome here: it’s the hospitality way, and the customer is always right.

I intend to cover as much as possible without overwhelming you with useless information. I want to tell you funny stories, review bars & drinks from them. I want to help you to get your head around the reasons why bartenders might act the way they do. A task? Shit yes! But me and my taste buds are at the ready.

I call Brisbane home so most of the reviews & discussions will be based in Southeast Queensland. Don’t think that will stop me though, whenever I venture to new pastures a pub or bar is usually the first place I hit and you can expect to read it all here. Feel free to comment, ask, or even suggest places for me to try and review. I may no longer be bartending, but my love for booze is for life. A love I hope to share with you.

Enjoy x

Tara 101

Favourite Spirit: Tequila (although I’ve been known to drink anything in front of me)

What I drink…

When it’s hot: Pear cider with bitters

When it’s cold: Heated rum with chocolate liqueur and cinnamon

To wind down: Scotch on the rocks

To party: Espresso Martinis with spiced rum

In a new bar: Classic Margarita (A drink that requires the basic skills of a good bartender)

Favourite pick up line: “Hey, you look like Toni Collette. Want to come home and read my Japanese Story?”

Looks delicious doesn't it?