Whiskey Cider

The Halloween party that I attended last weekend was hosted by my friend, B., who is multi-talented.  Beyond being eminently kind and funny (I could go on!), he possesses a serious gift when it comes to creating delicious food and drink.  For the party, B. served a wonderful hot spiced (and spiked!) cider.  When I asked B. for his whiskey cider recipe, hoping to share it here, I had a hunch that he had just thrown the thing together, following his nose and trusting his palate.  I turned out to be right.  B.'s recipe follows.

Flattered that you want to blog about the cider! I'm afraid there was no recipe, it was sort of a last minute concoction before running to assemble my costume. I had two big pots and basically filled each with cider 1/2 - 2/3 of the way, in order to leave room for the booze. I used 2 gallons of cider total. My roommate had an old mulling spice packet - it was primarily cinnamon/sugar and a little nutmeg - which went into one of the pots, mostly just to use it up. I then did my own thing with both of them, which was approximately the following (very approx.):

- 2 tsp cinnamon (less in the pot that had gotten the mulling packet) 

- Some freshly ground nutmeg (we have a grinder, which is awesome), maybe 1/2 tsp

- a few shakes of ground clove

- freshly ground pepper, maybe 1/4 tsp in each, just to warm things up a bit

- orange oil/extract, 1/4 tsp maybe

- orange blossom water (the kind from the Middle Eastern bakery), a very small drizzle

That's all sitting in a big pot on lowish heat. At some point I dropped a couple ladlefuls into my blender with a couple decent sized knobs of fresh peeled ginger, blended completely, then poured it back into the pots. You could also just grate it in - or use powdered ginger I suppose ;-)

Once everything gets to be hot and start steaming, I threw in maybe a couple tablespoons of honey and stirred to make sure it didn't just sit at the bottom and burn.

Then, after the Cider is well spiced and I'd tried it out on its own, I added Old Overholt Rye Whiskey. Again, not exactly to each pot, but in sum the proportions were about 40% Rye, 60% Cider. You could use your favorite bourbon here, too - I might have, but Old Overholt is sort of a secret gem, by far the most drinkable by cost of any whiskey in my opinion. (I happily drink it neat and it's $16 for 750 mL in Col Hts, so I got 3 bottles for the price of one higher end bourbon.) A little Cointreau would certainly have been a good addition, but I didn't have any.

Then just cover it on really low heat or turn it off and wait for all your costumed guests (and party crashers) to arrive!

This stuff would be so lovely to try if you have a holiday gathering around the corner.  And, the recipe is adaptable, based on your preferences and available ingredients. 

Thanks for sharing, B.!

(Image via bon appétit. Check out their take on whiskey cider here.)