I was so psyched when Tony said he would make alkermes for us this past holiday season. He first tried this Tuscan liqueur he says smells like “Christmas in a bottle” on a trip we took to Rome in the summer of 2015 and made a homemade version in time for that same Christmas.
Inspired by an article about innovative liqueurs in Food & Wine magazine—and the large bag of hibiscus flowers he had recently purchased from Atlantic Spice Company—he decided to also make a homemade version of Sorel, the hibiscus-based liqueur created and produced by Jack From Brooklyn.
Both liqueurs, which feature a floral component and various spicy notes, were sensational, but I enjoyed his newer concoction a skosh more. Rose water provides the floral note in alkermes (which is also spelled alchermes).
That's a photo Tony took of his first alkermes, in New Jersey. He mostly followed this recipe from Len Poli, a sausage maker in Sonoma, California. (Note: The recipe page isn't a secure site.) Hmm. I'd forgotten that's where it came from. The alkermes is intended to be used in a Tuscan cured meat product called mortadella di Prato.
Back then, Tony used red food coloring from the grocery store in place of the cochineal. His recent alkermes wasn't as pretty; he didn't bother with any coloring. The recipe doesn't say when to add the dye, but it's presumably at the same time as the rose water.
The alkermes incorporates dried orange peel and vanilla bean and a mélange of spices: cinnamon, coriander, aniseed, mace, cloves, and cardamom. For the hibiscus liqueur, Tony kept it simpler: clove, cinnamon, and ginger. For the liquid components, he used a mix of vodka and cold water at the beginning and sugar water when it was just about ready.
My first attempt at Eggnog Vegan Frozen Dessert turned out pretty well, but I'll need to keep experimenting with the recipe if it's going to become cookbook-worthy.
I knew I was going to use a vegan egg made of golden flaxseed as the egg in my nog. I was hoping using the golden kind of ground flaxseeds would result in a pale yellow VFD, but it didn't quite get there.
A lot of the vegan egg's gooeyness stayed behind in my strainer after I had cooked the VFD custard. The final product was as thick as usual, but I thought maybe next time I should cook the custard longer than I usually do to try to incorporate more of the richness of the egg. I also might double the volume of the egg to hopefully extract more of the gold color.
I knew eggnog should be spiced with nutmeg and spiked with some kind of alcoholic beverage. I researched recipes for drinkable eggnog and eggnog ice cream to see whether additional spices were sometimes used and what kind of booze was traditional.
Vanilla was a common addition to the ice cream recipes in particular. Cinnamon and/or cloves were sometimes included with the nutmeg, but nutmeg on its own was the most common spice contributor. Bourbon came up most often as the liquor, but rum was also common, and both were sometimes joined by cognac or another type of brandy.
The Food Network's website has recipes from Alton Brown for both the beverage and the ice cream, and the ingredient lists are identical except for the egg whites and extra sugar needed to make the meringue he incorporates into the liquid nog. His "3 ounces bourbon" is 6 tablespoons, which seems like an awful lot for only 3 cups of dairy product. I suspect I would prefer commenter Jennifer C.'s version of the ice cream if I got to try it; she dialed back the bourbon and added some vanilla extract and salt to amplify the other flavors.
A Classic Eggnog recipe on Martha Stewart's site calls for 16 egg yolks, vanilla—from a whole bean—and both bourbon and rum. The only spice is nutmeg, grated on top as a garnish.
A recipe called Martha's Classic Eggnog is extra boozy, with bourbon, rum, and cognac, and is enriched with meringue and whipped cream. And again, nutmeg is a garnish.
Finally, I looked to see what Dale DeGroff had to say about eggnog in his The Essential Cocktail, which I have on my bookshelf. His recipe, sourced to his Uncle Angelo, is reproduced at Liquor.com, with some changes that were presumably initiated by DeGroff himself, given his participation in the accompanying video. The amount of sugar in the meringue component is reduced by 1/4 cup. Nutmeg is strictly a garnish, while the book's recipe calls for using half a grated nutmeg berry in the liquid, before the meringue is folded in. (And the video shows DeGroff adding nutmeg to the serving/mixing bowl.) And you reserve some meringue for folding in as you're serving, while in the original, all of the meringue gets folded in at once. The amount of bourbon is doubled, to 8 ounces. And spicy rum is substituted for Jamaican dark rum. That's a lot of changes!
The Essential Cocktail also includes a recipe for Simplified Eggnog, which can be made by the glass instead of for a crowd. It's the recipe for Brandy Milk Punch—which consists of 2 ounces of cognac, 4 ounces of whole milk, 1 ounce of simple syrup, and a dash of vanilla extract—but with the addition of a whole egg. All of those ingredients are shaken vigorously together, and the resulting liquid is strained into a large highball glass and topped with freshly grated nutmeg.
One last note from DeGroff's book before I return to my VFD: Back in the day, nog referred to a strong ale, and that's what early English versions of eggnogs used for the alcoholic component. Rum was often substituted in America, because it was cheaper and more easily obtained, and DeGroff mentions an 1862 cocktail book—How to Mix Drinks by Jerry Thomas—that calls for Jamaican rum to be used in eggnog. So maybe that's how Jamaican rum ended up in the book's recipe, rather than spiced rum.
I was happy with the taste of my Eggnog VFD. I chose to use Bacardi Gold rum, mostly because our local discount liquor store was selling a tiny bottle of it and also because I'm not a big fan of bourbon or whiskey in general. I thought the nutmeg, my only spice, and rum both came through nicely. I used 1 tablespoon of rum and a slightly heaping teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg, as well as 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract to help harmonize the dominant flavors.
I wasn't thrilled with the VFD's texture, but that may be unavoidable in one containing an alcoholic beverage. It was decidedly less creamy than my other VFDs, probably because the alcohol inhibits freezing of the final product and makes it more prone to iciness.