The Spirits #92: Apple Pie Punch
~ Twelfth Night ~ The Boring Pandemic ~ I Slept in Her Black Arms for a Century ~ 2022 Reviewed ~ A New Approach ~
~ APPLE PIE PUNCH ~
Serves six or so
75g demerara sugar
1 litre good apple juice
600ml water
50ml apple cider vinegar
4 or 5 cardamom pods
2 or 3 cloves
2 or 3 all spice berries
2 or 3 cinnamon sticks
(Or whatever spices you have lying around)
Vanilla extract
Cream
Fresh nutmeg
This one requires a long, aromatic steep, the slower the better. Place all the ingredients (minus the cream and nutmeg) in a medium sized pan, gently warm, and stir. After 15 minutes or so the mixture should be fragrant and steaming - do not allow it to boil though. Now, using an electric whisk - or else a lot of elbow - whip up some cream until it is fully aerated. You know this to be the case when you can tip the bowl upside down and it doesn’t fall out. To serve, divide the apple punch into heat proof glasses, top with a spoonful of the cream and grate nutmeg on top.
Some Apple Pie notes:
1) Happy New Year! And Happy Epiphany, too! I am sorry this didn’t arrive pre-Christmas, as intended; I am aware that I abandoned you at the most cocktail-intensive time of the year (though hopefully a few of you caught these recipes in the Guardian). I succumbed to what I am calling the Boring Pandemic: that seemingly endless procession of bugs that is making merry with our depleted immune systems and transforming us from the efferverscent cocktaileurs we aspire to be into a low-energy, event-cancelling, Lemsip-sipping snotballs. Ah, but I’m already boring myself.
2) Rather happily under the circumstances, however, Apple Pie Punch, whic I had slated as a fun-for-all-ages Christmas party recipe for the 16th December actually transposes rather well to this precise moment. Twelfth Night is tonight and hard upon it comes wassailing season, which is when those of us who live in the apple-abundant lands of South-West England march into our cider orchards to expel the daemons from the trees before warming ourselves with apple punches like the one above. Wassail! Drinkhail! Etc.
3) Those of you who observe Dry January might like to note that this is non-alcoholic. Those of you who do not might like to add a generous shot of rum, brandy, bourbon and/or calvados per glass if you prefer (you might feel the need for a lick more sweetness if you do so, however). But this is what’s good about Apple Pie Punch, you can make a vat of it and all of your guests will thank you.
4) Think of the entire punch as more of a folk tune than a copyrighted composition. The spices are suggestions, really; each of us may add our own embellishments, trills, extra verses, grunts, etc. I have been known to pep mine up with rosemary sprigs, lemon and orange slices, pears, raisins, Madeira, honey, maple syrup, chamomile tea bags, hummingbird tongues, jellyfish entrails and extract of ambrosia. The cream on top is my latest addition and I fancy it is rather a good one.
Ooooh.
🖊️I am Richard Godwin.
🧋My instructions for sugar syrup, ice, grenadine, orgeat, etc are here.
🧑🏫 My 10 RULES FOR MAKING COCKTAILS are here.
⚗️ My bottle recommendations are here.
📃 The FULL UP-to-DATE A-Z recipe archive is here.
➡️ Please find a round up of organisations helping Ukrainians here.
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PLAYLIST
I do have a BEST OF 2022 list I’m working on but I will save for next week because I have long wanted to make an APPLE-themed list and I will never have as good a recipe match as this one. It’s a little melancholy… (thanks Smog!) but I feel that’s OK at this time of year. Sometimes you need to lean into that - as long as you remember to lean out afterwards.
I should note that the song Rio Manzanares is named after a river in Venezuela and not manzana, which is Spanish for apple. But I’m assuming that it has something to do with apples (“Appleby River” or something?) and it’s a lovely tune, crisp and juicy, so, it stays in.
Please note, this playlist updates every week (or thereabouts). The idea is, you heart it and return to it whenever you like. I compile all of the past playlists in this masterlist - so if there’s a song you liked a few weeks ago, this is hopefully where you can find. Put it on shuffle and it should make a pretty good general issue cocktail party playlist.
WHAT I’VE BEEN WRITING
Here are some recipes for cocktails you can make with Christmas leftovers. (Guardian)
And here is my rather mad review of 2022. (ES Magazine)
SHOPPING LIST
I will not be drinking this month, at least not much; largely because I want to give myself the best chance of not catching any more goddam bugs. However, I want to keep writing. So, for the next few weeks, I will be sending out a few posts on non-alcoholic things that bring me pleasure. Things like peanut butter, or table tennis, or Anna Karenina, which I am re-reading, or how cocktail principles may be used in salad dressings. Things like that. I’m hoping to keep these feuilletons within the general spirit of the Spirits - that is, diverting, practical and of scant relevance to whatever bullshit is going down on Twitter (if anyone still uses that anymore). Next week, for example, I intend to expound upon a theory of snacking.
Cocktail service will resume in February, I expect - maybe before - and hopefully, I’ll get round to that Aperol post for Cabinet subscribers too.