I Just Solved Christmas...

Sometimes, making new drinks is an arduous process that begins long before you ever get behind the bar, before you ever pick up a mixing tin.  Admittedly, very little of what we do is actually original, we borrow this technique from the past, that ingredient from the kitchen.  However, when I'm working on something fresh,  I spend time in liquor and grocery stores, in the pages of great mixology books by professionals likeTony Abou-Ganim and gaz regan.  I look online for inspiration in other people's work, their recipes and blogs. Sometimes, that's how it goes. Other times, it just hits me like a lightning bolt; the kind of obviously great idea that just clicks into place and I know it's going to be great before I even get started.

Why hasn't anyone made Peanut Butter Irish Cream?

I knew it before I even finished the thought: this is going to be delicious.

A couple of Decembers ago, I had a coworker who made fresh Irish cream and gave it to us as Christmas gifts. It was good. It was so good that when there was an extra one, I quickly volunteered to give it a good home, aaaand drank it all before the New Year. (I shared.) (Grudgingly). I loved her recipe, and for years I tried to get it out of her.  Every shift I picked up for her, I asked her for the recipe, to return my favor.  Every time Irish Cream came up in conversation. I don't doubt it was tiresome and sadly, I can assure you my efforts to make her want to tell me failed.  I eventually gave up, decided she was crazy, let the whole thing go.

And then this thing occurred to me, and I couldn't get to the interwebs fast enough.  I needed a basic recipe for Irish Cream.  I am basically lazy, so when I need this sort of thing, I find as many recipe variations as seems reasonable.  Then I make a chart of all possible ingredients and mark it up to show which ingredients they mostly have in common.  Then I have a skeleton to build onto, tweaking and updating.

I made the following masterpiece using that same springboard, and tried to dial back its fat content without sacrificing its deliciousness.



You will need...

3 14-oz cans of Eagle brand Lowfat Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 c. Better'n Eggs

4 tbls.Hershey's Dark Chocolate Syrup

4 tbls. Smucker's Naturals Creamy Peanut Butter

4 c. Jameson Irish Whiskey

2 tbls. Lavazza  Espresso Powder

2 tbls. Real Vanilla Extract

Blend and chill.

(The only problem? Having it around the house - it's very seductive....)