Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Recipes for REAL Men AND Women - Volume 14, God Damn that's a Daiquiri

So this recipe arose from Mels desire to occasionally de-stress with the hard likker, while not being overwhelmed by its taste. This is complicated by the fact that Mel has an obsessive dislike for things even the slightest bit tannic.

Yes that pretty much limits us to Rum, Vodka and various Liquers; and froofy mixed drinks.

Now if I'mna drink, I want to DRINK damnit (not to get drunk, I drink alcohol for the flavor) so we have to find a happy medium. I've got a few of these recipes around, but this is what we had tonight.

note: You need a large blender for this recipe, a second pitcher of the same capacity or larger than the blender, and it's better if you have extra large cocktail glasses

Ingredients:

16oz peaches in light syrup or water
6oz (4 jiggers) Bacardi 151
6oz Cointreau (or other triple sec)
6oz Peach Schnapps
4oz pure fresh lime juice (sweet and sour mix can be substituted but isn't as good)
4oz simple syrup
Ice (1-3lbs depending on serving choice, and desired texture)
4oz grenadine (appx)
4oz condensed milk (optional)

Preparation:

First combine the peaches, lime juice, and simple syrup in the blender, and puree until perfectly smooth. If you are using sweet and sour mix, just use 8 oz of mix with no simple syrup; unless the peaches are in water, in which case you still want the syrup. Trust me on this, you NEED that sweetness.

At this stage you have to decide whether you are going to have this drink on the rocks, or blended "frozen" style.

You can also pre-prepare this mix up to this stage, as far as 3 days before hand, and store in the fridge until ready to blend with ice and/or serve. I don't recommend doing that however as the peaches can develop off flavors from the alcohol and contents of your fridge.

If you are serving on the rocks (the traditional method), add in all the alcohol, then blend until smooth (if your blender isn't quite big enough pour some peach mixture off, then mix it in the pitcher later), and skip to the last step; otherwise, read on MacDuff.

If you are going to serve this as a frozen blended style drink, for most blenders you are going to need to split the recipe in half. Many, if not most blenders have a 32oz capacity. Better bar or restaurant style blenders have 40oz, 48oz, or 64oz jars (the largest of which can in theory just barely handle the entire recipe), but even a larger bar style blender may have a problem crushing two plus pounds of ice all in one go.

I HIGHLY recommend you get a good blender. The $20 Wal-Mart specials just don't do the job, and WILL burn out if used frequently to crush ice. You need a blender with a 500 watt plus motor (700 watt or better is recommended), and a very high speed. I recommend getting one the manufacturer specifically rates as being able to crush ice dry (meaning with minimal water actually. No normal blender will properly crush ice without some water, and any blender can crush ice if its mixed 50/50 with water).

basically if your blender has a motor over 500 watts an ice crush setting, and a good warranty from a reputable manufacturer, it's probably powerful enough.

Aaaaanyway, the next step is highly dependent on the texture you want. If you are looking for a smoothie type texture (which has become popular in Applebees type places), you are going to want to use a lot of ice, for a normal blended drink you would use a bit less.

So lets assume you want a normal blended drink first, the other will follow (which I only recommend if you are a froofy sorority sister type).

Take half the blended fruit mixture and pour it into a large cup, putting it aside to blend as your second batch. Add an equal amount of ice as fruit mixture, and use the ice crush setting to blend smoothly.

At this point you should have a couple inches left at the top of the blender, enough for half the alcohol. Add now, and blend again until smooth. Pour into a pitcher and repeat for the next batch.

Now, if you want a smoothie wimpout pansyass officegirl letting her hair down drink, you want to pour all the peach out but about 4 oz, then fill the blenders pitcher all the way up with ice, add half the powdered milk, and crush till smooth but blend as little as possible. Then add half the alcohol, blend again, and add more peach mixture in until the pitcher is full. Repeat for the second batch. If there's a little left over peach mixture (there probably will be because of how much ice is used) stir it into the pitchers at the end.

Even then, this drink has too much alcohol and too much real fruit to be the same texture as one of those silly applebees drinks. If you want that texture, stick it in the freezer for a half hour after you blend it, and lightly stir when you take it out.

Ok, last step.

Take your blended drink mix, and pour into clear, extra large cocktail, balloon, or sundae glass. Pour about 1 shot of grenadine in all the way around the rim of the glass for a beautiful blooming peach effect, and about a half a shot into the direct center of the drink for evenness, and a little extra sweetness. After serving put the remaining drinks into the freezer, and then lightly stir when taking out to serve more.

Serves four to six "Texas size" daiquiris (16oz or 24oz depending on the glass), or eight to sixteen standard daiquiris (6oz or 8oz depending on the glass); depending on the serving style chosen.

Oh and on the serving sizes... One should carefully note, this recipe contains 8.25-8.5 oz of pure alcohol, the equivalent of about 20 shots of whiskey. These Daiquiris are not for the weak of heart, or liver. A single standard sized daiqiri in this recipe will contain 1/2 oz of pure alcohol. A single "Texas sized" drink will have up to 2oz of pure alcohol.

That's kinda hard for ust about anyone really, and unless you are sure about your tolerance I'd recommend against it. For a recipe with about only 6oz of pure alcohol (15 shots), substitute standard gold or white rum. This results in a slightly weak small daiquiri (college girl level) with just less than a shot; and a large sized modeol with up to 4 shots worth. Thats still stronger than most are used to but the sweetness and tang balance it off well.

And be sure to check out:

Recipes for REAL Women, Volume 13 - Mels 10,000 Calorie Butter Cookies
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 12 - Lard Ass Wings
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 11 - Bacon Double Macaroni and Cheese
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 10 - It's the meat stupid
Recipes for REAL Men, Volume 9 - Labor Day Potatos
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 8 - It's a pork fat thing
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 7 - It may not be Kosher...
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 6 - Andouille Guiness Chili
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 5 - Eazza the Ultimate Pizza
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 4 - Two Pound Meat Sauce
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 3 - Highbrow Hash
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 2 - MuscleCarbonara
Recipes for REAL men, Volume 1 - More Beef than Stew