For reference, I know it's a crappy snowman. It was pretty lousy packing snow, so I did the best I could. Anyway, while I've been out here, I indulged in a bit of a culinary experiment with a Russian winter drink called sbiten. Following the recipe listed there, I assembled all the necessary ingredients. While there is an option to make a non-alcoholic version of it, that just seemed silly to me, so I actually got a decent bottle of wine to throw into it.
It calls for a bottle of wine, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, honey and blackberry jam. After putting the wine on to boil, I started getting the ginger and nutmeg ready, and I may have put in slightly more than the recipe required, but I figured subtlety could wait until my second batch.
After the wine was up to a good boil, I threw in all the ingredients, including a whole jar of blackberry jam, which may be a bit of overkill, but I was following the recipe. So, I let it simmer for a while, stirring occasionally.
And then it was time to serve it! At which point, several problems became apparent. One, I should have put the cloves in a tea-ball or some manner of spice-bag, as I kept picking them out of my teeth. Secondly, it was THICK. I mean, it was less a drink than it was a flavorful, alcoholic porridge. On the plus side, it tasted great. Sweet from the honey and jam, with all the appropriate kicks from the nutmeg, ginger and cloves. Almost a bit overwhelming, actually, so I may scale back next time. I will also definitely scale back on the jam, perhaps using half a jar next time, in addition to a larger portion of wine, as I wound up making approximately 5 mugs worth of it. Still, I killed my portion, as I did rather enjoy it.
In any case, happy New Years! Here's to more adventures in 2011, and more regular blogging as well!
1 comment:
I just found your blog. :)
Happy New Years man! And may I say, your snow man looks rather dashing with his beret.
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