When life gives you snow... make snowballs.

Well, not literally—I've not found too many people who are fond of this mix of Advocaat and lemonade (also available in handy premix bottles) other than dear old Mumsie.

But there has been some interesting work on snow cocktails. I was particularly impressed by a chap who had videoed himself in his garden making a mojito from the snow from his bird table.

There is a old fashioned lamp-post outside my wind, now adorned with lovely large icicles. Needless to say Mrs B. was not keen on me shimmying up it just to make a cocktail.

In the end I found some icicles donated by a kind neighbour...

Here is the result:

A Gin & Tonic made with Beefeater Winter (well, what else?) atheistically pleasing but a devil to drink.

A word about the Deadly Yellow Snow

A Deadly Yellow Snow in its simplest form

Reading DBS's post about his snowball experiments last night inspired me to go out and scoop up a pint glass of virgin snowflakes from the garden and attempt my own Snow Julep.

Like David I found that it pretty much impossible to drink without a straw—the liquid just sulks at the bottom of the powder.

The only solution I found was to mash the whole thing up with a spoon, producing, in effect, a Bourbon Slurpee. This looks rather pretty and holds its consistency very well: I can imagine it being a great thing to suck on of a hot summer's day.

Mind you, as I sat reading in bed last night nursing one of these concoctions I couldn't help thinking to myself that it actually wasn't very nice: it had unpleasant, bitter overtones that I put down to the mint that I found in the fridge not being in the first flush of youth.

But when I came down this morning I idly sipped the melted snow in the pint glass, expecting something, well, pure as the driven snow. In fact it was really foul, with horrible stale, dusty flavour. My wife thinks that foxes peed in the snow (but then she is convinced that everything in the garden is constantly urinated on by all of God's creatures). I suspect the truth is that the snow that lands in London has to fight its way through all kinds of pollution.

The Bourbon Slurpee serve

It's possible that DBS has a better quality of snow down in Havant. But if you're planning to experiment with snow in food or drink, you might want to taste it on its own first!

Deadly Yellow Snow
50 ml bourbon
Sugar lump
Fresh mint
Suburban snow

Place mint in a glass. Drop in sugar lump and muddle with the mint leaves. Add snow and pour in the whisky. Either drink with a straw or mix into an alcoholic Slush Puppy. Then discard.

Lab Update #3: Snow.

Lab update #3 - Fun with Snow

With all my scheduled meetings for the day cancelled, I decided to make the best of this impromptu day-off and use the weather in some drinks.

First I tried a Snow Julep using Jim Beam Green Label Bourbon, it's looks good and I thought it was a nice idea but it was very difficult to drink without a straw.

The next idea (below right) was inspired by Clayton (and I have to admit I feel the same) love of the G Vine ice balls, rather than one big ice ball to add to your whisky why not use a compacted snowball. Once I had packed it together I put it

in the freezer for a minute to let it harden up.

this seems to cool the drink moderately, but not as much as the Gvine cubes.

Below left: you can see a Gin & Tonic, "Evans" style served with another chunk snowball ice.

Some readers may think, using snow ice is all well and good but I would like to be warmed up.

Well I shall introduce you to my simple hot toddy recipe:

2pts Whisky

1pt Sugar Syrup

1pt Lemon Juice

4pts Boiling Water

I have scaled this up using 500ml whisky, 125ml sugar syrup, 125ml honey, 250ml lemon juice. I added the whisky sugar syrup and lemon juice to a saucepan and gently heated it, I then added the honey,a pinch of nutmeg, and stirred. After heating for a few minutes I removed the pan from the heat. After cooling I strained it and bottled it.

Voila! You have a premix hot toddy, just add hot water (1pt toddy mix : 2parts boiling water.)

Curiosity Cabinet #4 - Shannon's Irish Coffee

So I was on a supply run for ingredients to make some more Old Tom Gin & Mincemeat Vodka when I came across a small package of what I initially thought were just two toddy glasses, I was half right. They were toddy glasses but they had been pre-filled with Irish Coffee.

For any vintage nostalgics the box is a treat, picture of 1940s flying boats, old maps a flying cap and gloves all accented by gold and browns. This is not too surprising as, according to the box, this sort of Irish Coffee was served on the 1940's flying boats on the river Shannon.

The box suggests the first Irish Coffee came about:

One night in 1942 when bad weather forced a transatlantic flying boat to turn back to its base. As coffee was served to the bedraggled passengers, a drop of Irish Whiskey was added to their cups.

A surprised American asked "is this Brazilian coffee?" "No" came the reply, "That's Irish Coffee."

Cocktail historians may notice there is no mention of Joseph Sheridan of Foynes one of the suggested creators.

Back to the drink itself, as I said the glasses already contain the separate cream and coffee whiskey and have a foil top. To make the drink hot you pierce the top of the foil and microwave it for 45 seconds.

Hold on! Surely they know you shouldn't put metal in the microwave? Apparently not.

If you do buy this product I strongly urge you to remove the foil and not risk damaging your microwave, try some microwavable cling-film instead.

So avoiding sparking appliances, I had a drink that was as black as Guinness on the bottom with a half inch of light as Bailey's-coloured liquid on the top. (Actually it looked a bit more like evaporated milk.)

As soon as my mouth touch the top of the drink I expected the cream layer to dissipate leaving a curdle-looking mess, but I was wrong, up until the last sip the separation between cream and coffee was maintained. It was quite to pleasant to sip the coffee mixture through the cream as it added a touch of richness. On reflection the drink tasted better than I thought, it was actually quite nice. The problem was that due to it's extreme richness it was difficult to finish, after each sip you felt you probably drawn a bit too much from the glass.

In conclusion, I must admire Shannon's for the technical work in maintain the separation of the light cream and the dark coffee but I must question the wisdom of putting foil in the microwave.

But if you are in the market for two pretty neat toddy glasses, this is quite a nice way to get them.

Ice ball update

I've become rather addicted to the ice balls I described earlier. I now make them with mineral water, though I don't know how much difference that really makes. They are certainly not crystal clear—I think you have to buy in elaborately made professional ice to get that. In fact I added one to a glass of bourbon last night and noticed some rather pretty patterns in the ice:

Rather like a tiger's eye gemstone, isn't it?

Can any science boffins out there tell me what is going on here? I'm guessing that as the water freezes from the outside in, something happens to trapped air, but I don't think I've ever seen anything quite like it before.

Or like a frozen exploding sun. There's a good name for a cocktail

Plymouth gin tasting, 29th November

Please note that, owing to the tube strike, this event, which I mentioned before, has now been postponed to 13th December.

Ham Cam Retrospective: Ham Porn!

If you came to the last Candlelight Club you will probably have tasted Will's Martinez-cure ham. He has sent me some more snaps of the elaborate process of making it. Last time we saw it swimming in the salt cure. After that it was boiled and then roasted.

After boiling

After roasting

Can't help expecting Nigella to ooze into camera at this point

After slicing—and just before being slipped between slices of bread…