Tia Maria Saga (Spanish Coffee)
I just bought a crap-ton of liquor. I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to get some unsweetened apple juice concentrate, since I sent my insomniac housemate an email around 2 Saturday morning suggesting I'd make her a pie, and then I remembered that she doesn't do sugar because of the insomnia, and then badgerbag gave me a bunch of apples she'd picked, and then I found a good-looking no-sugar apple pie recipe, since I really need to get rid of a bunch of flour since with the kitchen re-org a few months back I recognized that we have about 5 variously-full bags of flour and then Marisa moved and gave me another, so pie crust and such have been things I've been considering baking for awhile, since I've never had much luck with bread and besides, it's cold now, and so the damn stuff wouldn't rise, so anyway, I needed no-sugar-added apple juice concentrate and I stopped at the store.
Got some sharp cheddar cheese, too.
The store reminded me of my frustrated search for Tia Maria there a day or two before, when I went to collect some brandy and triple sec. See, I picked up some pretty Halloween martini glasses on a whim Thursday, and with them martini makings. Martinis and Spanish Coffee and sake are about my favorite drinks, and having the makings for the first and the lack of desire to heat/bother with the last, I had only to collect everything necessary for the Spanish Coffee...
See, ACNW kind of spoiled me, I realize. With the Spanish Coffee that was flaming and sparking and with the cream and tastiness... I didn't realize that it was the kind of cocktail people had to pull out their dusty books to make. At New York New York in Vegas I was stymied at one of the bars by a guy who was all, "We don't have any Tia Maria!" WTF? What's Tia Maria? Apparently when Mom was in college people were making their own by infusing coffee beans in vodka. Hum.
So I came home and looked up the Spanish Coffee recipe on the web so I'd know what I had to do to make it myself. Recipe I saw said brandy, Tia Maria, coffee, and whipped cream. Went to collect brandy and Tia Maria and met a clerk who'd never heard of the stuff...
A trip to BevMo was in order, and today after picking up the apple juice, cheddar, and a copy of the Weekly World News that was just sitting there at eye-level, I decided it was a fine time. I mean, I needed MacAllan 12 year, too; I've been out since ACUS. Though how the hell am I going to bring it? God knows it might explode and take down the whole plane if carried on, and I like it too well to want it leaking all over my clothes in cargo. I guess I could get a zillion tiny shampoo bottles, clean them out, and fill them with scotch... Aha! I guess this is why people have flasks! ...Eh.
Let me take a moment to set down, as best as I recall, the process of making a Spanish Coffee at ACNW, at the little wood-panelled bar near registration that appends to the Black Rabbit Restaurant. The bartender takes a tall glass footed mug, and rubs the tops in half an orange to get it sticky. He flips the mug and puts it in the dish of sugar so there's a sugar rim sticking to the orange juice. He pours in some alcohol, and lights the alcohol, and twists the glass around so that the flame carmelizes the sugar to the rim of the glass. He dashes in two other doses of alcohol, and then squirts in some coffee from the carafe. He knocks two shakers of spice together over the still-flaming glass, and the flames turn the falling spicebits to sparks. Then he carefully pours some cream on the top, which finally quenches the flame, and shakes some more spice on the cream.
What are we dealing with, here? I'd guess normal granulated sugar, 151, Tia Maria, another rum (to tell the story out of joint, I found at a website of Tia Maria recipes that Spanish Coffee doesn't make the top 20 cocktails, and that it may have rum instead of brandy), cinnamon, nutmeg, and light cream. I'll have to experiment, but that's what I suspect.
So I found some 151, to find that on the back it says "not to be used to light food or beverages..." Oh, must you? Must you dissemble so? We all know that there is no other reason to have Bacardi 151 than to have flaming cocktails. Am I to light Everclear? Or would I have found that also had a weaseley sidebar on the back label? Please, leave your lawyers out of my liquor store.
Located and observed the coffee liqueur section. Kahlua. The Starbucks stuff. Green tea... Oo, sounds interesting, but stay on target... Finally, behind some other stuff, I found one bottle of Tia Maria. No price or fellow bottles or anything.
Ahwell. Also got some Danish cherry brandy, because hey why not sounds tasty, and then I found the spinny standup thing of tiny little bottles of all sorts of stuff... How does Glenlivet taste, verses Glenfidditch? I shall determine! Also, I can directly compare the Starbucks liqueur with Tia Maria. I hate to support Starbucks because their coffee is so bad, but their liqueur is certainly easier to find.
And they had pretty, pretty rainbow acryllic glasses, which hopped into my basket as I got a couple hot cocktail mugs. Eventually I escaped to the checkout line, where the computer didn't recognize the bar code of the Tia Maria, and the manager had to consult some tome to find the price...
So, yeah. I feel that I've gotten about as much booze as I'll need this year.
Soon, perhaps tomorrow, I shall make pie, and try my hand at flaming coffee drinks. What could be better than sour apple pie and sharp cheddar cheese and creamy alcoholic coffee?
Got some sharp cheddar cheese, too.
The store reminded me of my frustrated search for Tia Maria there a day or two before, when I went to collect some brandy and triple sec. See, I picked up some pretty Halloween martini glasses on a whim Thursday, and with them martini makings. Martinis and Spanish Coffee and sake are about my favorite drinks, and having the makings for the first and the lack of desire to heat/bother with the last, I had only to collect everything necessary for the Spanish Coffee...
See, ACNW kind of spoiled me, I realize. With the Spanish Coffee that was flaming and sparking and with the cream and tastiness... I didn't realize that it was the kind of cocktail people had to pull out their dusty books to make. At New York New York in Vegas I was stymied at one of the bars by a guy who was all, "We don't have any Tia Maria!" WTF? What's Tia Maria? Apparently when Mom was in college people were making their own by infusing coffee beans in vodka. Hum.
So I came home and looked up the Spanish Coffee recipe on the web so I'd know what I had to do to make it myself. Recipe I saw said brandy, Tia Maria, coffee, and whipped cream. Went to collect brandy and Tia Maria and met a clerk who'd never heard of the stuff...
A trip to BevMo was in order, and today after picking up the apple juice, cheddar, and a copy of the Weekly World News that was just sitting there at eye-level, I decided it was a fine time. I mean, I needed MacAllan 12 year, too; I've been out since ACUS. Though how the hell am I going to bring it? God knows it might explode and take down the whole plane if carried on, and I like it too well to want it leaking all over my clothes in cargo. I guess I could get a zillion tiny shampoo bottles, clean them out, and fill them with scotch... Aha! I guess this is why people have flasks! ...Eh.
Let me take a moment to set down, as best as I recall, the process of making a Spanish Coffee at ACNW, at the little wood-panelled bar near registration that appends to the Black Rabbit Restaurant. The bartender takes a tall glass footed mug, and rubs the tops in half an orange to get it sticky. He flips the mug and puts it in the dish of sugar so there's a sugar rim sticking to the orange juice. He pours in some alcohol, and lights the alcohol, and twists the glass around so that the flame carmelizes the sugar to the rim of the glass. He dashes in two other doses of alcohol, and then squirts in some coffee from the carafe. He knocks two shakers of spice together over the still-flaming glass, and the flames turn the falling spicebits to sparks. Then he carefully pours some cream on the top, which finally quenches the flame, and shakes some more spice on the cream.
What are we dealing with, here? I'd guess normal granulated sugar, 151, Tia Maria, another rum (to tell the story out of joint, I found at a website of Tia Maria recipes that Spanish Coffee doesn't make the top 20 cocktails, and that it may have rum instead of brandy), cinnamon, nutmeg, and light cream. I'll have to experiment, but that's what I suspect.
So I found some 151, to find that on the back it says "not to be used to light food or beverages..." Oh, must you? Must you dissemble so? We all know that there is no other reason to have Bacardi 151 than to have flaming cocktails. Am I to light Everclear? Or would I have found that also had a weaseley sidebar on the back label? Please, leave your lawyers out of my liquor store.
Located and observed the coffee liqueur section. Kahlua. The Starbucks stuff. Green tea... Oo, sounds interesting, but stay on target... Finally, behind some other stuff, I found one bottle of Tia Maria. No price or fellow bottles or anything.
Ahwell. Also got some Danish cherry brandy, because hey why not sounds tasty, and then I found the spinny standup thing of tiny little bottles of all sorts of stuff... How does Glenlivet taste, verses Glenfidditch? I shall determine! Also, I can directly compare the Starbucks liqueur with Tia Maria. I hate to support Starbucks because their coffee is so bad, but their liqueur is certainly easier to find.
And they had pretty, pretty rainbow acryllic glasses, which hopped into my basket as I got a couple hot cocktail mugs. Eventually I escaped to the checkout line, where the computer didn't recognize the bar code of the Tia Maria, and the manager had to consult some tome to find the price...
So, yeah. I feel that I've gotten about as much booze as I'll need this year.
Soon, perhaps tomorrow, I shall make pie, and try my hand at flaming coffee drinks. What could be better than sour apple pie and sharp cheddar cheese and creamy alcoholic coffee?