Category: Alcohol

Tipsy Scoop: Up Your Ice Cream With A Boozy Twist

I love ice cream but Melissa Tavss of Tipsy Scoop has taken it one step farther. Instead of just ice cream, she’s adding artisanal spirits and creating boozy sweet treats. Her ice creams such as Dark Chocolate Whiskey Salted Caramel Ice Cream, Vanilla Bean Bourbon Ice Cream, and Raspberry Limoncello Sorbet have been available at many retail stores for several years now. And last summer, she formed a partnership with Williams Sonoma enabling Tipsy Scoop to be shipped to customers nationwide through the Williams Sonoma website. Tavss has also released her first cookbook, “Tipsy Scoop: Latest and Greatest Recipes.”

You can use the cookbook to make your own Tipsy Scoops. Also available are a variety of Tipsy Scoop kits such as their Skrewball Peanut Butter Whiskey Chocolate Swirl and Spring Fever Cocktail Kit featuring 1 pint Strawberry White Sangria Sorbet. 1 pint Vanilla Bean Bourbon ice cream, 1 bottle cherry hard cider, 1 can spiked strawberry lemonade,  1 mini cherry preserves,  1 bag cherry gummies, 1 bag fruit gummies,  1 fresh lemon, and recipe cards, paper straws, and hashtag flags (for posting your creations on social media sites).

The following recipes are courtesy of Melissa Tavss and are from “Tipsy Scoop: Latest and Greatest Recipes.”

Note: Though some of these recipes call for specific brands of alcohol, you can substitute your own–though the taste may differ somewhat.

Ice Cream Mix

This recipe freezes well.

  • 1 ½ cups whole milk
  • 1 ½ cups heavy cream
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 8 egg yolks

Makes 1.5-2 quarts of ice cream mix

In a medium-size heavy duty saucepan, add milk, heavy cream, and vanilla. Over medium-high heat, scaled the mixture, removing from heat once bubbles begin to form.

I a large bowl, add sugar and egg yoks and whisky until the turn a lighter yellow, about 30 seconds to 1 minute.

Slowly pour half the scaled milk and cream mixture into the gg yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Add the egg and mix mixture back into the saucepan.

Saucepan. Warm over low-to-medium heat, stirring constantly with a heat-resistant spatula or spoon. The custard is thick enough once it can easily coat a spatula or spoon which takes a few minutes. (Note: Overcooking will scramble the eggs so proceed with caution.)

Transfer custard to a heat proof container, cover, and let cool for 1 hour before adding in alcohol and additional ingredients.

Maple Bourbon

  • 6 cups Ice Cream Mix (see recipe above)
  • 1 cup Four Roses Bourbon
  • ¼ cup maple syrup
  • ½ cup bacon, cooked and chopped (about 8 to 10 strips of bacon)

In a large mixing bowl, combine ice cream mix, bourbon, and maple syrup and stir.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.

While mix chills, cook bacon until it is crispy and set aside on a paper towel to drain and cool for around 30 minutes. Chop into quarter-inch pieces using a sharp knife. Refrigerate in airtight container until ready to add to ice cream.

Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions until it has a gelato-like consistency.

Transfer the ice cream to a large mixing bowl and stir n bacon crumbles. Transfer the ice cream into a freezer-safe containers and freeze for a least eight hours before serving.

Hot Buttered Rum

“What could be better than that last bite in your bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch?” writes Tavss in her description of what she describes as a cinnamon-y sweet cereal milk bite turned into a spiked ice cream.  “Not only will it give you that taste of nostalgia, but will bring you that festive, comforting, holiday party in your mouth feeling all year long.”

  • 6 cups Ice Cream Mix
  • 1/4 cup Cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon Melted Butter
  • 1 cup Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum

In a large mixing bowl combine all the ingredients and stir.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.

Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions, until it has a gelato-like consistency.

Transfer the ice cream into freezer-safe containers and freeze for at least 8 hours before serving.

Makes about 2 quarts.

Serving suggestions:

Caramelize sliced bananas and make a bananas foster split. Add extra toppings like hot fudge, caramel sauce, toffee, walnuts and anything else that sounds good.

Non Dairy Ice Cream And Sorbet

“You’ll notice in the chapters following that not only do we have milk-based ice creams, but also have a few options for non-dairy boozy ice creams and boozy sorbets,” writes Tavss in the introduction to her chapter on non-dairy ice creams and sorbets. “Our non-dairy ice creams are made with a coconut milk base and our sorbets are made with different fruits, so they have a water/fruit base.

Puree recipes vary fruit by fruit, but our sorbets all start with fruit purées- raspberry, mango, watermelon, peach etc. Since there is so much variation fruit by fruit, you’ll see instructions for each fruit purée included within the recipes in the following chapters.”

Simple Syrup Recipe

What all sorbet recipes do have in common is the need for simple syrup. Here is a very simple, simple syrup recipe:

How to make simple syrup:

  • 1 cup white sugar
  • 1 cup water

In a medium saucepan, combine water and sugar.

Bring to a boil, stirring, until sugar has dissolved. Allow it to cool.

Watermelon Mint Margarita Sorbet

“Watermelon. Mint. Margarita. Is there a more mouthwatering combination of words in the whole English language?” writes Tavss, describing this sorbet to be like sitting on the back porch with a juicy slice of watermelon dripping down your forearm or cutting out of work early for a happy hour margarita on that first really hot day of summer.”

Watermelon Purée:

  • 2 cups simple syrup
  • 3 cups fresh watermelon chunks

Sorbet:

  • 4 cups watermelon purée
  • 1 cup tequila
  • 1/3 cup mint syrup
  • (we recommend Monin)
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice

Make Purée:

Remove seeds from watermelon and purée in blender or food processor until smooth. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, combine watermelon with simple syrup and stir.

Make Sorbet:

Combine watermelon purée with tequila, mint syrup, and lemon juice.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours.

Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions.

Transfer the sorbet into freezer-safe container and freeze for at least 8 hours before serving.

Makes about 2 quarts

Serving Suggestion:

Recreate our Watermelon Mint Margarita Sundae by using an ice cream disher to scoop the sorbet into a pink cone bowl and garnish with fresh mint, Watermelon Jelly Belly seeds and sour watermelon Gummies.

Grown Up Sundae Station

“Now that you know how to make some of our most popular boozy ice cream treats, it’s time to

showcase your talents with an ice cream party,” says Tavss about this section of her book which helps you organize a grown up sundae station that’s the perfect dessert for special occasions like 21st birthdays and engagement parties.

“For the holidays go all out with pretty seasonal toppings or add Prosecco to your bar so guests can make their own floats,” she says. “Boozy ice cream makes every occasion a little more fun—cheers.”

Assorted Boozy Ice Creams and Sorbets

What you’ll need:

  • Insulated Beverage Tub
  • Oversized Martini Glass
  • Oversized Margarita Glass
  • 3 Rocks Glasses or Mason Jars
  • Small Serving Spoons
  • Maraschino Cherries
  • Rainbow Sprinkles
  • Gummy Bears
  • Cookie Crumble
  • Sour Fruit Slices

Place beverage tub in the middle of a 4-ft table and fill with ice.

Fill oversized martini glass with sprinkles, oversized margarita glass with cherries, and three rocks glasses with other toppings.

Insert servings spoons in toppings and arrange on the table around the tub.

Fill a quart-sized container with water and two ice cream scoops and place to the left of the beverage tub.

On one end of the table put out small bowls, spoons and napkins.

As guests arrive remove ice cream pints from the freezer and place in the tub of ice. Invite guests to make their own boozy ice cream sundaes! Our toppings are just suggestions, so swap for your favorites or add even more garnishes to your sundae bar.

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The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz-Age America

          George Remus came to America as an impoverished German immigrant who continually re-invented himself, until he rose to the top, becoming the most successful bootlegger in this country’s history, owning 35 percent of all the liquor in the United States and earning the title as “King of Bootleggers.” But his story, as told by Karen Abbott in her new book, The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, the Women Who Pursued Him, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz-Age America, isn’t about machine guns and Al Capone-style executions.

Remus, a teetotaler who spoke of himself in the third person, didn’t believe in violence to enforce his business. Instead, he was an oddball intellect and pharmacy school dropout who at 19 was peddling his self- branded patent medicines like Remus’s Nerve Tonic which contained, among other less toxic ingredients, henbane, a hallucinogenic plant. By age 24 he was a defense attorney practicing in Chicago. Married, he fell in love with Imogene Holmes, the woman who cleaned his office, offered to handle her divorce and set her up in apartment in Evanston. His wife didn’t like that one bit and filed again for divorce; their divorce settlement in 1919 was a lump sum of $50,000, $25 a week in alimony and $30,000 in trust for their daughter at a time when an average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year, an accountant about $2,000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year and a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000.

          Seeing all the money being made in selling bootlegged booze, Remus decided to go big time and, spotting a loophole in Title II, Section 6 of the Volstead Act allowing buying and using liquor for medicinal purposes, he developed a master plan that included using his pharmacy license to acquire wholesale drug companies, purchasing distilleries and organizing a transportation company as well as bribing officials to look the other way. It worked fantastically until it didn’t.

He was brought down by Mabel Walker Willebrandt, a pioneer prosecutor at a time when there were few women in the field and his own gold digging wife who fell in love with Franklin Dodge and divulged many of her husband’s secrets. Dodge, it turned out was Willebrandt’s best investigator, assigned to dig up dirt on Remus and so he did. But that, in ways, was just the beginning of the story.

          Abbott, the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in The Second City, American Rose and Liar Temptress Soldier Spy, named one of the best books of 2014 by Library Journal, the Christian Science Monitor, and Amazon, says she typically gets her story ideas when researching. But she discovered Remus when watching the HBO series, Boardwalk Empire.

          “Remus was a very minor figure on the show, and I wondered if he was a real person,” says Abbott, who also serves on the National Advisory Board for the Chicago Brewseum, the country’s first non-profit museum dedicated to telling the story of beer. “His real story was so much more fascinating and dramatic than the show involving a love triangle, betrayal, murder and a sensational trial. He was a brilliant strategist and I loved the way he spoke in the third person. My favorite is ‘Remus’s brain exploded.’”

          Abbott was also very intrigued by Imogene (“a classic villain”) and Mabel (“Inhumanely tough”).

          “You have this woman who could was allowed to vote for nine months—along with every other adult female in the country–when President Harding put her in office to be the assistant attorney general of the U.S. and had hearing problems and spent an hour each day styling her hair to hide her hearing aids, going up a brilliant attorney like Remus,” says Abbott, noting that her appointment had less to do with an advancement for women as her as her bosses, many of whom were being bribed by Remus, thinking she was fail. “And, of course, she had her own betrayal when she discovered that Dodge and Imogene were plotting to ruin Remus and take over his business.”

          Abbott who spent four months in the Yale University Law Library, researching including reading the 5000 page transcript of the trial, had 85,000 pages of notes when she was done, described her endeavor as “the most fun researching I’ve ever had.”

          Among her many discoveries was that Imogene and George, who lived life very large, had a gold piano in their home.

          “So did the Everleigh sisters,” she says about the two Chicago madams who she chronicled in her book Sin in the Second City. “Who have thought that I’d end up researching two books where people owned gold pianos.”

Lost Recipes of Prohibition: Notes from A Bootlegger’s Manual

When I was writing my book, A Jazz Age Murder in Northwest Indiana (History Press), about Nettie Diamond, a wealthy widow and pharmacist who was murdered by her fifth husband, a much younger bootlegger named Harry in Indiana Harbor on Valentine’s Day 1923, one of the things I learned was that it was relatively easy to get a permit during Prohibition to buy medicinal alcohol and distribute it.

That may be why I’m finding a new book, Lost Recipes of Prohibition: Notes from A Bootlegger’s Manual by Matthew Rowley (The Countryman Press 2015; $27.95) to be a fascinating read.

Rowley, who describes himself as specializing in folk distilling and the manufacture and distribution of illicit spirits, was given an old book titled The Candle and The Flame, The Work of George Sylvester Viereck. The interior didn’t contain any poems by Viereck, a popular poet up until his pro-German sensibilities during World War I made him a pariah in the U.S. Instead, the book’s once blank pages contained a plethora of handwritten distilled spirit recipes procured and preserved by a New York pharmacist named Victor Alfred Lyon.

As for Harry, he wasn’t supposed to sell alcohol for non-medicinal purposes like he did—by adding real spirit company labels to his own bottles…but that was Harry who also.  According to Rowley, many pharmacists made alcoholic concoctions to help ailing (or just plain thirsty) customers and many distilleries were allowed to continue to operate to provide product. Rowley points out that during Prohibition, the sale of sacramental wine went sky high as people suddenly became much more religious.

Lyon’s recipes were collected from a variety of sources and at the time he was gathering them, some were a century or so old. Rowley organized the recipes in chapters such as Absinthe, Cordials, and Bitters and Gin; Compounding Spirits and Gin, Whiskey and Rum.

Less a cookbook than a history and how-to of spirit making, Rowley does include many of Lyon’s recipes from a simple cocktail that silent screen movie star Mary Pickford enjoyed to the complex (and supersized) such as one for Rumessenz which calls for gallons of ingredients and was used by wholesalers, barkeepers, importers and exporters to make an essence of rum they could use for adding the aroma and tastes of rum to a batch of plain alcohol creating a higher profit margin.  That’s similar to what Harry Diamond did as well and at his trial he told the court he made about $20,000 a month from bootlegging.

Here’s one of the book’s recipes.

Lanizet: Sour Mash Cajun Anisette

3 quarts water

25 ounces sugar

½ teaspoon anise oil

½ tablespoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon red food coloring

3 cups bourbon or Tennessee whiskey

5 to 7 pounds ice

Pour 1 ½ quarts of the water in a medium stockpot. Note the depth of the liquid. Later, you will boil the syrup to this height. For now, pour in the remaining water and all the sugar. Bring to a boil, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Lower the heat and simmer until the liquid reduces to 1 ½ quarts, 50 or 60 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat.

While the syrup is simmering, sterilize five new or well-scrubbed 1-pint canning jars in a deep pot or canning pot. Leave the jars in the hot water until you’re ready to use them. Wash and boil the lids and rings according to the manufacturer’s directions.

When the syrup reaches that 1.5-lquart mark, turn off the heat and remove the pot from heat. Stir in the anise oil, vanilla and food coloring until thoroughly mixed, then stir in the whiskey. Remove the jars from their hot water bath with tongs. Place the jars (don’t touch with your bare hands) on a wooden surface or folded towels and immediately pour the crimson liquid into the jars up to 1⁄2 inch from the tops. Wipe any dribbles or spills from the rims with a clean, damp cloth and place hot lids on top with sealing compound down; screw on the metal rings firmly but not too tightly.

Line your sink with a damp dish towel; it will prevent the hot jars from breaking when they touch the cool surface. Immediately place the jars upright in the sink, then slowly fill it with cool tap water so it covers the jars. As the jars cool, you’ll hear a series of metallic pops and pings; that’s a vacuum forming in each jar. When the jars are cool to the touch, after 5 to 10 minutes, place them upright in a tub of ice, with ice to top off the jars, to cool the anisette as quickly as possible. Once contents of jars are well chilled, about 1 hour, remove the jars from the ice. Label and date the jars, then store upright in a cool, dark place.

Yield: 5 pints

From Lost Recipes of Prohibition.

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