Mixology Monday II

Mon 8 May 2006

(Yes, I am posting a day in advance here).

The Art of Drink is hosting Monday Mixology II which has a coffee theme. While not a big cocktail drinker, I have been known to take a fancy to the icecream cocktails at Suburban in Wimbledon so to this end I thought I could make a good stab at mixing my own cocktail. How wrong can one girl be?

My idea was ... vanilla ice cream, coffee, dates and dark rum ... I had visions of a fabulous, slushy, thick, alcoholic, coffee-y, rich drink/dessert ... it would look fantastic and (for a change!) photograph semi-OK ... and taste amazing too ...

I was so organised I even put 4 dates into some rum to soak for a good 24 hours - by the time I was ready to use them they were gorgeous, fat glossy dates that had dutifully absorbed a lot of the rum.

Things started to go a bit wrong when the supermarket lacked any high quality vanilla icecream, but, necessity being the mother of invention and all that I thought that chocolate fudge brownie icecream, with swirls of chocolate sauce would make an admirable substitute.

I was wrong. The biscuit-y texture of the icecream, which was good when it was being eaten as icecream, was plain gritty when I attempted to make it into a cocktail. You couldn't taste the dates, and the coffee meant that the whole mix was just two liquid.

But, if you want to reproduce this cocktail catastrophe here's how to do it. For two people, soak four dates in some dark rum for as long as you can. Pop dates and remaining rum into a jug and add 100mL more of dark rum, 250mL of cold (pre-prepared) coffee and four generous scoops of icecream. Blitz. Pour into glasses and top with a small piece of icecream and drizzle with cream.

This is what it looked like:

Trust me when I say it looks better than it tasted ... subsequent analysis suggests that plain vanilla icecream would have been superior, along with using coffee liqueur, rather than proper coffee.

Fortunately, I had made a nice leek and bacon tart (not a disaster!), half of which was scoffed before the pub and the other half after.

Perhaps I'll have the courage to participate in another Mixology Monday. However, I've learnt that I'm miles ahead when it comes to cooking - ice cream cocktails I might have to leave to professionals for just a little while!

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