Underhill-Lounge

As it is ice cream season, here are a couple drinky sorbet recipes I’ve had good luck serving at parties.
Don’t push the amount of alcohol, or you’ll end up with slushies instead of sorbet.
Mojito Sorbet
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
5 sprigs of mint
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
1/8 cup rum
Zest of 2 limes
2 tablespoons mint [...]

Since someone asked me about this, I thought I should write it up.
You may have noted I used Apricot Kernels in my Orgeat.
A friend asked, “so the cyanide from the apricot kernels isn’t a problem in the orgeat?”
First, let me say I’m not a scientist or a doctor. Please take anything I say here [...]

Thought I’d write up the main points from my presentation at Tales of the Cocktail.
Our panel was about Making Your Own Cocktail Ingredients.
The ingredients I covered were Swedish Punsch and Orgeat.
Four Main Reasons to Make Homemade Liqueurs and Syrups
1) Preservation. You’ve got a tree full of walnuts and the squirrels will eat them if [...]

This time I’m following Francois Xavier’s Orgeat procedure from this blog post:
Homemade Orgeat Syrup (French Barley Water)
(My favorite part of the lovely pictures which accompany the recipe is that the author appears to be making orgeat in his/her pajamas.)
550 grams blanched and roughly chopped almond & (optional) apricot kernels
150 grams blanched and finely minced almonds [...]

In the quest to make a Swedish Punch Clone, I had combined two Jerry Thomas recipes and made a variation using Sri Lankan Arrack. While interesting, I later discovered it wasn’t very Similar to Swedish Punch.
I re-used the same procedure recently using Batavia Arrack.
This was what I did:
Underhill Punsch II
1 cup Appleton V/X Rum
1/2 [...]

First off, let me say that the websites which say that blanching almonds is as easy as…
Place almonds in a bowl.
Pour boiling water to barely cover almonds.
Let the almonds sit for 1 minute and no longer.
Drain, rinse under cold water, and drain again.
Pat dry and slip the skins off.
…are lying. Sure, [...]