Posts tagged ‘ginger beer’

Last month’s Bon Appetit came with a little present for me — no, not a subscription card to Gourmet; that came with the magazine’s final November issue, to add insult to injury — a cocktail recipe composed of my favorite components. Scotch, lemon juice, and elderflower liqueur combined to make something called the Highland’s Fall, and it was so enticing, it only took me six weeks to mix it up. (I have a bit of a recipe backlog going on.)

Surprisingly, I found the mix too harshly citric— and this coming from me, the most devout of the lemon lovers — but happily, I was simultaneously drinking a ginger beer while self-bartending, so I cut the twang with a little of my beloved carbonated beverage. The warmth of the ginger softened the citrus tones while blending with the smoky undertones of the Scotch and the delicacy of the elderflower. It’s definitely not as mannish as having a finger of whisky while you hunch over the bar and mumble about the underrated genius of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, but it’s still quite appropriate for a pre-dinner toast by a roaring fireplace. I’m renaming it the Glasgow Ginger in honor of its new ingredients.

Glasgow Ginger
(serves two)

• your finest Islay single malt (I am a Lagavulin/Laphroaig girl myself)
• 1/2 cup blended Scotch (I used Dewar’s)
• juice of 1 lemon
• 3 tbsp St. Germain elderflower liqueur
• 1/4 cup ginger beer

Pour just a drop of the smoky Islay Scotch into each of two cool retro coupes and swirl it around to “rinse” the glasses. Set aside. In a cocktail shaker, combine the blended Scotch, lemon juice, and St. Germain with five or six ice cubes. I don’t care what shape or size they are; I’m not a mixologist from PDT, for Pete’s sake. Just take what comes out of your freezer and shake it around for 30 seconds. Pour into the prepared glasses and top with half the ginger beer in each coupe.

Well, it finally happened. That scratchy throat I thought was just a ragweed allergy blossomed (heh, but ouch) into a full-blown flu earlier this week, and it looks like I wasn’t the only one struck down by the bug. As the only cook in the house, when this happens, I have no recourse (and no appetite) to do anything but rely on the simplest foods.

The childhood taste memory I summon most often in these miserable moments is my mom’s cinnamon sugar toast—always on well-browned wheat bread and cut on the bias into triangles. I use a ratio of 3 parts sugar to 1 part cinnamon, or one tablespoon of sugar to each teaspoon of cinnamon, and stir up a whole bunch in an old jam jar to keep in my pantry. When I don’t have any homemade bread in the fridge, I’m partial to the Vermont Bread Company’s multigrain flavor, but I’ll take anything that provides a good crusty crunch against the heavy sprinkling of sweet.

Although I do have chicken stock in my freezer, when I’m sick, I seem to crave the kind of sodium that only processed food can offer. I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve purchased Cup o’ Noodles at Duane Reade in particularly dark moments, but at home I always keep ye olde bouillion cubes in the pantry to soothe me. Two cups of water and two chicken boullion cubes are brought to a boil, then I toss in a handful of whatever small/thin pasta is around (ditalini, orzo, or udon are my favorite choices). The key, if I have it available, is thinly sliced green onion on top. Something about the bite of the scallions cuts through my clogged sinuses and adds just enough nuanced flavor to the broth.

And along with copious amounts of tea, there is nothing more appealing to take the itch out of a hot, sore throat than carbonated beverages. But not ginger ale – am I a masochist to say I prefer ginger beer? I have been a Stewart’s Ginger Beer addict ever since I spent the summer at Interlochen Arts Camp and subsisted mainly on it and Slim Jims for eight weeks (sorry, Dad – money well spent!), but my recent obsession is Maine Root Ginger Brew. I want the strongest burning sensation I can find in my ginger beer to scorch the existing fire out of my throat. If that’s too much for some, may I recommend Maine Root’s signature root beer? Throw a scoop of vanilla ice cream into that and it sounds like the perfect remedy for a couch-bound, flu-stricken invalid.