Egg cream - Susan Wenger
Geograffy - Edmund Burton
Lassi - Isabelle Hayes
Lemonade and Lemon Squash
Bob Saldeen Asks...
Mary S. Replies
Conrad Risher Says
And Adam Quinan Adds
Liquours
Jan Garvin's Extra Creamy B&B
Singapore Sling
Sara Waterson's Homemade Sloe Gin
Mandaretto
Suggestions - Karen von Bargen
Bananas Foster Mandaretto - MacKenna Charleson
Absinthe
Gerry Strey
Roger Marsh
Martinis
Mars Bar Martini - Patrick Tull
Amazing Perfect Martini - HRGreenberg MD endit
Moscow Mule - Kyle Lerfald
Papa Smurf Punch - Susan Wenger
Rancho de Chimayo Punch - David Strother
Root Beer and Root Beer Floats
Jane McCormick's Homemade Root Beer
Howard Douglass' Amalgamated RBF
Jim Morgan's Black Cow
Tomato Tincture - Sarah Scott
Dave Phillips' Improved Margarita Recipe
Smoothies - Susan Wenger
Egg Cream - Susan Wenger
Take an 8-ounce glass, and put in 2 tablespoons of Fox's U-Bet Chocolate Syrup about 2 ounces of milk (not the skim stuff)
fill with seltzer - NOT CLUB SODA - the 2-cents-plain stuff
Stir vigorously
Drink through a straw, not straight from the rim of the glass.
Geograffy - Edmund Burton
From Newton Forster; or, the Merchant Service, by Captain Frederick Marryat, Chapter 44
"...sailors have long made use of a compound which actually goes by the name of "geograffy", which is only a trifling corruption of the name of the science, arising from their laying the accent on the penultimate. I will now give his lordship the receipt, which is most simple.
"'Take a tin-pot, go to the scuttle-butt (having obtained permission from the quarter-deck), and draw off about half a pint of very offensive smelling water. To this add a gill of vinegar and a ship's biscuit broke up into small pieces. Stir it well up with the fore-finger; and then with the fore-finger and thumb you may pull out the pieces of biscuit, and eat them as fast as you please, drinking the liquor to wash all down.
"Now this would be the very composition to hand round to the Geographical Society. It is not christened geography without a reason; the vinegar and water representing the green sea, and the pieces of biscuit floating in it, the continents and islands which are washed by it."
Note: I am informed by a usually reliable source (my sister) that there is an alternate recipe, found in a book called The Word Museum, which calls for burnt biscuit boiled in water. You can see that burning the biscuit would have the advantage of driving out the weevils.
Editor's note: This is an Archive.org edition of the Marryat book. To find the quote, search on "'tin-pot."
Lassi - Isabelle Hayes
Non-fat plain yoghurt, the amount can vary, but let's say 2 cups
about ten ice cubes for 2 cups of yoghurt
whatever fruit you have, mango is great; the amount will vary;
honey, about 1/2 cup (again, the amount will vary)
Put everything in a blender, process until the ice has disappeared, and enjoy!
Lemonade and Lemon Squash
Bob Saldeen Asks...
What do you ask for when you want the non-carbonated sweetened lemon juice stuff?
Mary S. Replies
I thought the answer was "lemon squash," but all the recipes on the Web for making lemon squash specify lemon juice, sugar syrup, and soda water.
I don't know anybody in the States who makes lemonade with bubbly water, though I have seen pink lemonade made with grenadine syrup, does you want to get fancy.
Conrad Risher Says
I have long been thinning my lemonade -- I purchase concentrate like the frugal scout I am -- with a few ounces of seltzer. Not quite "mak[ing it] with bubbly water," I will grant you, but it adds wonderfully to the refreshment.
And Adam Quinan Adds
There is commercially made lemon squash which is a concentrated syrup of lemons sugar etc. and is usually diluted with plain water, though soda water could be used.
But I don't recall seeing North American style lemonade at all in Britain, unless it was (occasionally) home made. Of course, things may have changed in the last twenty years since I stopped shopping regularly there.
Liquours
Jan Garvin's Extra Creamy B&B
There is always the half jigger of heavy cream mixed with a decent brandy or B&B, and a half teaspoon of fine sugar, topped with a bit of fresh nutmeg.
Sara Waterson's Homemade Sloe Gin
I have a good receipt for Sloe Gin at home but from memory -
I use a wide topped glass jar - you need to stir it from time to time. It's important to pierce the sloes a couple of times with a needle. Fill jar about 1/4 to 1/3 full. Lots of sugar. A dash of almond essence if you can find it - it does make all the difference [I've never tried almond slivers, good idea]. Fill with gin and leave for 2 or 3 months if possible. Only a SMALL glass after dinner, mind....
Singapore Sling
1 oz Gin
1/2 oz Cherry Brandy
4 oz Pineapple Juice
1/2 oz Lime Juice
1/4 oz Cointreau
1/4 oz Benedictine
1/3 oz Grenadine
1 dash Angostura Bitters
Combine all of the ingredients in a shaker, fill with ice and shake until the shaker is well frosted. Strain into a tall glass and garnish with a slice of pineapple and cherry.
Mandaretto
Suggestions - Karen von Bargen
You could make it into a lovely sugar sauce and pour it over expensive vanilla ice cream. Such gifts are lovely tonics in time of sickness as well, make you forget what, exactly, is ailing. You could dump some of it in a fruit salad. Put some in punch to make it live up to it's name...
Bananas Foster Mandaretto - MacKenna Charleson
Hearkening to another thread, you could probably do a lovely version of Bananas Foster with this ... a thin crepe, fresh bananas, a nice heated marmalade/mandaretto sauce for the innards and the outtards, the brown sugar/rum combo (flamed) and then toasted slivered almonds, perhaps toasted coconut, and fresh whipped cream on top.
Absinthe
Gerry Strey
Absinthe is now obtainable in the US, though the anise-flavored Pernod has been around for years. I believe it was the wormwood in absinthe that was considered to be so insidiously addictive. Out of curiosity I bought a small bottle recently and thought it truly horrible, even dripped over the sugar cube in the approved fashion.
Roger Marsh
The fennel-based absinthe was considered a pernicious beverage and does seem to have become a scourge in France and other countries around the turn of the last century and after, well-known for its influence in the 1890s on the famous Montmartre artistic and literary community, for example. There is a museum there to it, and it is featured in the Musée de Montmartre too. It was banned in Belgium in 1906, the Netherlands in 1909, the USA in 1912 France in 1915 and Germany in 1923; it never was prohibited in Britain but had not become a problem here. Pastis continued to be drunk, such as Pernod, Ricard and Greek ouzo, which do not contain the allegedly toxic and hallucinogenic ingredient of proper absinthe, wormwood. Spain continued to produce it and still does, Portugal too; production has also recommenced in the Czech Republic and in France So... you may well now get it again in the USA, possibly from Spanish or Czech sources, even from France again; the US bans were lifted in 2007 as they have also been in many other countries which previously banned it.
Martinis
Mars Bar Martini - Patrick Tull
From the New York Times:
'In Texas, the pilgrim traveling this Via Dolorosa will find the Martini Ranch, a Dallas establishment, whose manager said, "The sky's the limit. If it's in a martini glass, it's a martini." He ain't a-kiddin, either. One of the bar's standout cocktails is the Mars Bar Martini, a syrupy swirl of dark chocolate liqueur, white chocolate liqueur, Amaretto and Frangelico, served in a glass whose rim has been dusted in chocolate flecks from frozen Hershey Bars that have been run through a blender.'
Amazing Perfect Martini - HRGreenberg MD endit
I did not believe this recipe for the perfect martini until I tried it.
Freeze best gin.
Best vermouth in refrigerator part.
A soupçon - smidgin and I mean it: smelly cheese -- gorganzola will do
lillet -- light type
light blended scotch
These items are literally microscopic or microdropic they are placed at the bottom of the glass first glass preferably chilled
Add gin with a mist of vermouth -- or very little.
Add one or two olives.
Enjoy.
The imbiber and no mean one who gave me this recipe says that it is known amongst martini cognoscentinis originated apparently in Long Island restaurant and was invented not by bartender but by haut cuisine cooks If anyone knows the mix and the inventor, let me know. Ain't this prime - trust me. By the way, the bigger the martini, the better it tastes.
Moscow Mule - Kyle Lerfald
Both [Vernor's and ginger beer] make a wicked-good Moscow Mule. Jigger of Vodka, lime juice and either of those two soda-pops over ice. Perfect summer drink, if one cannot get a G and T. As for Vernor's, it's closer in spirit to Reed's Ginger Brew than pure ginger beer, which there are fewer adjuncts in.
Papa Smurf Punch - Susan Wenger
The "newest" popular punch for children is "The Papa Smurf:" Ginger ale with several drops of blue food coloring; and a cherry nestled atop whipped cream floating on top.
Rancho de Chimayo Punch - David Strother
The Rancho de Chimayo, founded and run by la familia Jaramillo, is a truly wonderful place, the sort that Jack and Stephen would certainly have frequented if they had sailed ships of the desert.
They have a signature cocktail based on the apples for which that part of New Mexico is famous. It has been immortalized in the "Rancho de Chimayo Cookbook" by Bill Jamison et.ux., from which I take it without permission:
1.5 oz gold tequila (or even Herradura reposado if it's a festive occasion)
1 oz apple juice, preferably unfiltered
.25 oz lemon juice
.25 oz creme de cassis
1 slice unpeeled apple
Pour into 8 oz glass half filled with ice cubes and stir to blend.
Garnish rim with apple slice. Imbibe.
Root Beer and Root Beer Floats
Jane McCormick's Homemade Root Beer
Root beer to me is perhaps closer to something Jack and Stephen might have drunk. When I was a kid, we made our own root beer, using Hires Root Extract. We mixed it in an enormous soup kettle, holding at least ten gallons. The Root Extract, and ten or fifteen pounds of sugar, and several packages of yeast, plus a lot of warm water. Stir together, bottle in one- or two- gallon (clean) shampoo bottles, borrowed from the hairdresser. Leave in the root cellar for however many months one could stand. After a while it had quite a kick. Tasty! Nothing available now matches it.
I remember one year we aged it on the porch, and I would occasionally be awakened at night by a jug of root beer exploding. Ka-POW!
Howard Douglass' Amalgamated RBF
Root beer's apotheosis is the Root Beer Float - a large (milk-shake sized) glass with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream and topped up with root beer, then whipped or stirred until amalgamated.
Jim Morgan's Black Cow
What joy! I can hardly remember anything more delightful from childhood than stopping at an A&W Root Beer shop after a hot day at the beach for either a float as described above or a "Black Cow" (same as above but with chocolate instead of vanilla). Only we didn't "amalgamate" them ourselves. We'd eat ice cream and sip root beer until the heat of the day did the amalgamating. The mugs were nearly quart sized and heavily frosted and the entire magnificent concoction cost 15 cents.
Tomato Tincture - Sarah Scott
It is equal parts by weight of onions, peeled garlic, ginger root (not peeled) and hot peppers (cayenne, jalapeño, scotch bonnet, whatever you have) put them in the blender, add enough vodka and blend to something like milkshake consistency. Then you shake it everyday for two weeks, strain it, and add a half-teaspoon or so in your tomato juice in the morning.
I don't know if it "cures what ails me" but I've come to like that little explosive capsecum-induced glow in my stomach first thing in the morning. I have to admit I didn't strain all of it, and about twice a week I have a little quarter teaspoon on a cracker as an afternoon snack. Ka-BOOM! Love it.
Dave Phillips' Improved Margarita Recipe
1 bottle sour mix
12oz Tequila, up from 10
4 oz Grand Marnier, up from 2
Smoothies - Susan Wenger
I love my Vitamix. I've put away the blender and the food processor since I got the vitamix. I make smoothies often - a cup of yoghurt (danactive or similar), some fresh fruit, some frozen fruit, some ice, some juice, whatever I have on hand. The vitamix can handle a lot of fruits without any prep - apples don't have to be peeled or cored, I just pull off the stem. Strawberries don't have to be uncapped. Watermelon doesn't have to be seeded - everything whizzes up in there. I do have to take the hard pit out of a peach, and I have to peel oranges so the result won't be bitter, but I don't have to take out the orange seeds. If the smoothie is going to be all I have for breakfast, I throw in a handful of uncooked oatmeal or some flax. A whiz, and it's a smoothie. A minute later, it's clean. Put in some water and turn it on, and it's clean. Soup: I can make soup out of almost anything, but the simplest is to take a can of soup, heat it a little, add fresh raw vegetables and whiz that for a few seconds - not long enough to puree them, I like my veggies to have some chunk to them, and to stay mostly raw. I add leftover anything I have, or not. Again, cleanup is a breeze. Guacamole? I have to take the pit out of the avocado, then I throw in an unpeeled garlic clove, a small slice of onion, and 1/4 peeled lime. Maybe a tomato. Good stuff. It costs more than a blender or a food processor, but it lasts forever, with a really powerful motor and an unbreakable polycarbonate container.
Which it's the Patrick O'Brian list of the world!