I bought a bottle, and tried it. It will knock your socks off. I don't know if grandma downed it in shots or sipped it slowly, but either way she had to be one strong woman. It was relegated to the bottom shelf in the liquor cabinet for a couple of years.
Recently I wondered if I could make something drinkable of it. Hmm?
I decided to try cinnamon and sweetness. I had a bottle in the spice cabinet with three cinnamon sticks in it. You buy them, use one, and the others slowly get old. I dropped a couple of them in a small saucepan, added 3/4 of a cup of sugar and 3/4 of a cup of water, a dollop of corn syrup and put over a medium low heat. I dropped the remaining cinnamon stick in the half empty bottle of fire water. The corn syrup changes the molecular structure of the simple syrup, making it less likely to crystalize. I heated and stirred a little until the sugar had dissolved, not quite to a boil. I fished the cinnamon sticks out and dropped them in the bottle, and then funelled the sugar syrup into the bottle, capped and shook it up. I shook it a couple of times over the next 24 hours, then sampled a little bit. Oh my, it tastes like apple pie. It brings out the fruit in the brandy and adds that wonderful cinnamon bite on top. I shake it each day, it picks up just a little more flavor, and it is drinkable. And probably 60 proof. I have tamed Granny's fire water.
How good was it? It is all gone.
If she downed that in shots, she must have been something else!!!! I have something similar, in the winter months before bed, in a cordial, but sip.
ReplyDeleteJust a wee dram,
DeleteShe died at 108, after completely recovering from hip surgery in her 90's.
DeleteYou are planning to outlive me.
DeleteYou have invented a new alcoholic beverage! In years to come, lonesome guys will sit down on high stools in New York City bars and say to the barmen, "Gimme a double Godfrey!"
ReplyDeleteA single is more than enough,
DeleteWhen my grandmother was in her late 80s, the doctor told her a shot of schnapps before bed couldn’t hurt. Slivovitz was one of the bottles she had in a kitchen cabinet and she “took” that and others nightly because the doctor “prescribed” it. Did you make up that concoction? It sounds good.
ReplyDeleteThe spicing was my idea, it worked.
DeleteA friend of my husband brought this to a party at our house. Yes, it definitely knocks your socks off!
ReplyDeleteUnaged it is bit of a challenge.
DeleteSounds like you'll be buying all the Silivocia stock from your local liquor store now!
ReplyDeleteI'd sooner Goldshlager
DeleteI have never heard of that liqueur but with your reimagining perhaps you could bottle it and sell it Travel Penguin's Winter Elixir o fix what ails ya!
ReplyDeleteIf there was any left.
DeleteI would never have thought to do that. Great way to rescue the bottle.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a shame to waste it.
DeleteThat was inventive! I'm not sure I would ever have come up with such a solution!
ReplyDeleteI make a killer coffee liqueur
Delete