The Spirits #67: Horchata

~ The Ancient Origins of Nut Milk ~ Cinnamon ~ Highways Revisited ~

~ HORCHATA ~

25ml tequila reposado (optional!)
25ml dark rum (optional!)
10ml cinnamon syrup
75ml almond/rice/oat milk
Dash Angostura bitters

Shake everything up in the old shaker and then strain into a tumbler-type thing containing a single large ice cube. Cinnamon stick garnish.

Some Horchata Notes:

1) I’ve suggested tequila + rum but you don’t have to use alcohol at all if you don’t want! Basic horchata - cinnamon syrup plus whatever kind of milk you fancy - is an excellent drink.

2) Your standard Mexican taqueria horchata is usually made by soaking cinnamon and white rice in water, blending, straining, and sweetening. The word “horchata” comes from the Latin hordeata, i.e. barley water, which was used for all manner of beverages created by steeping things in water ( it also gave rise to “orgeat”). Horchata was traditionally made in Spain with tiger nut milk, but in the New World rice became more common… and throughout Mexico, canteloupe seeds, almonds, oats and, bringing things full circle, barley, are also used a. So let no one tell you that these non-milk milks are a new innovation! Personally? I used almond milk: Plenish Organic Unsweetened as it is just almonds, water and a pinch of salt. Avoid the ones that are full of weird stabilisers.

3) You could use all rum or all tequila. Brandy also good. But I rather liked this split-base approach. The tequila gives it a good vegetal spike, the rum brings warmth.

iAy caramba! It’s the Spirits.

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🖊️I am Richard Godwin.
🧋My instructions for sugar syrup, ice, grenadine etc are here.
🧑‍🏫 My 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS are here.
⚗️ My bottle recommendations are here.
📃 The full A-Z recipe archive is here. 
➡️ Please find a round up of organisations helping Ukrainians here.

And you like The Spirits, do please forward this to all of your friends.

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PLAYLIST

I am still slightly madly overworked alas, so, here’s another curtailed post. But I thought instead of leaving you in silecne again or thrusting Russian hip hop on you, I’d resurrect an old playlist from the jazzy early days of the newsletter. This one accompanied the Avenue post (an excellent drink!) and consisted of songs about streets, avenues, boulevards etc. I remember liking this one. I have reverse-engineered it thanks to Bruno Espadana’s diligent Apple archiving but with a couple of amends. Joni Mitchell isn’t on Spotify anymore, so I have subbed with Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s ode to the Montreal thoroughfare. Oh and there’s bonus Laura Nyro too.

THIS PLAYLIST UPDATES AUTOMATICALLY EACH WEEK. The idea is, you download it and return to it each week in your Spotify. If there was an old song you’d like to hear again, you’ll find it RIGHT HERE in the ongoing archive of 2021 playlists.

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WHAT I’VE BEEN WRITING

I interviewed Jack Davenport about the English version of Ten Percent for the (Radio Times)

And the extraordinary musician Jacob Collier for the (Sunday Times)

And the delightful Elizabeth Olsen for (C Magazine)

And here’s a big old piece about the state of the British TV industry as BBC, Channel 4 and Netflix all face radical changes to the way they do things. The biggest threat is, as so often, the British Government. (ES Magazine)

WHAT I’VE BEEN READING

Johanna on men who watch porn at work (New Statesman)

…and also on Laura Bates’s book Fix the System, Not the Women (Observer)

Lots on the renewed assault on women’s rights in America and elsewhere, but particularly Marina Hyde, Sian Norris, Laurie Penny and Hadley Freeman.

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SHOPPING LIST

Gin, brandy, red vermouth, orange liqueur, bitters.

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