Sometimes you read a recipe, only to realize later that you’ve skipped an ingredient, or perhaps, gotten your order of operations mixed up. Not to worry. This can be the base of a whole new discovery if you treat it right.
“Marrubium vulgare – Köhler–s Medizinal-Pflanzen-224” by Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler’s Medizinal-Pflanzen – List of Koehler Images. Licensed under Public Domain via Commons.
Recently I came across a recipe for rock and rye, a drink dating back to the 1940’s, that calls for the infusion of rye liquer with spices, fruit, and homemade rock candy. One of the ingredients listed was horehound (Horehound is an aromatic flowering plant that can be found from North Africa through Greece and they make a candy of the same name), which can be difficult to find. I’ve seen the old timey candy available, which I may try next, but for now I stuck with lemon and orange peel, anise and cinnamon. Don’t trouble yourself over which rye to buy. Remember you are infusing, so in the end your in control. Buy what you can afford.
The next step I had to fudge a little bit. I made the rock candy but it didn’t want to comply when it came time to leave the jar. And with said rock candy, you’re supposed to make a cheerwine syrup to pour over the candy. For those of you who made not know, Cheerwine is to North Carolina what Mountain Dew is to Tennessee. Well there I was in my kitchen thinking,”What do I do now?” Then I tasted the syrup left surrounding the crystals. “Yum! It tastes just like cotton candy.” I exclaimed to my guests. Then I decided to hell with the instructions. It’s time to take lemons and make lemonade. I poured my infused rye into a glass and added a good amount of the extra tasty simple syrup I accidently made. I topped with Angastora bitters to balance out the sweetness, added a touch of Grand Marnier and Cheerwine soda. Don’t forget to pack her full of ice and garnish with a lemon twist. I guarantee it’s delicious, like an adult cherry soda but better. The moral of this story is don’t get discouraged if you try a recipe someone else perfected that you don’t feel came out quite right. Work with what you have and make it your own. I guarantee they didn’t get it right the first time. And sometimes not getting it right, ain’t wrong either.