The Devil's Advocaat

Sometimes remakes are just not worth the effort, as seen with the 1967 film, Bedazzled, featuring the fabulous Raquel Welch, and later in 2000 with Elizabeth Hurley (sorry, Liz: no contest.)

However, I decided to take my chances this week and try my hand at recreating Advocaat- the rich, creamy liqueur of Dutch origin- since I'd be needing it for my Mixology Monday experiments... So, what exactly is Advocaat? It's traditionally a brandy-based liqueur (those Dutch really do love their brandewijn,) made with egg yolks and sugar. It's very similar in taste to eggnog, it's British cousin. It's also not altogether far off in flavor from Irish cream liqueur, which relies on- surprise!- Irish whiskey for it's base spirit, and cream instead of eggs.

Advocaat seemed like a seasonally appropriate item to acquire and use for this challenge, and since Caroline  and I are both big nog fans, I figured it wouldn't go to waste around our house. There are a few brands of commercially produced Advocaat on the market, including one from the well known Bols company, but I decided that since it can be made at home (and the store-bought products are likely to be full of extra sugar and artificial flavorings- poo!) that I would take a stab at a lovely recipe shared last winter by David over at 12 Bottle Bar. If you'd like the recipe, please go explore his blog to get it- he and his crew are the business!

1) First thing's first, I cleared space and assembled my ingredients and equipment.



I separated the egg yolks right into a big glass bowl (this would also later serve as part of my double boiler setup,) and made sure I had my sugar, salt, brandy, vanilla extract, measuring spoons and cups, and my trusting handmixer ready to go. I used light brown sugar, mostly because I realized after I got home from the store that I didn't have any granulated white sugar, but also because it's closer to what those Dutch folks be usin' back in the day...

2) I added the salt and sugar to the yolks, and beat them senseless with my mixer.



This got pretty thick and splattery pretty quickly- next time I think I'd spend a little more time smooshing out the lumps in the sugar before adding it, so that it incorporates into the yolks more rapidly and therefore stays in the bowl...

3) Then in went the brandy, and the drooling started...



This thinned out very quickly, so I learned fast to keep the mixer on a low setting; waste not, want not!

4) Then I moved the whole thing over to the stove:



I don't have an actual double boiler, so I just used my 4-quart stockpot. I brought the water to almost boiling, and then turned the heat down to low and put the bowl into the pot. Caroline and I took turns whisking, since you pretty much need to do it nonstop to keep it from gumming up on the sides of the bowl. Once the Advocaat starts to thicken again, it happens pretty fast, so I was glad for David's suggestion to use the double boiler method; I just kept diddling around with the heat to keep the water almost hot. You don't want to cook the yolks, or cook off all of the brandy... By the time it was thick enough to coat my kitchen spoon, I had the heat almost all the way down to the lowest setting. I took the bowl off the heat, and added the vanilla. Then it was pretty much a waiting game until it was cool enough to bottle...



I happened to have a pretty nifty bottle with a wooden cap, that once contained some rather inexpensive hazelnut liqueur puchased for some fancy chocolate hazelnut cupcakes Caroline made a couple of years ago. I'm kind of a packrat like that... Anyway, I think it looks pretty spiffy in there. Use any well-sealing, sanitized container you like. Be advised though, that I ended up with quite a bit more Advocaat than the 700ml quess-timate David provided; my bottle is a 750ml liquor bottle, and had nearly a whole measured cup beyond that, so pour cautiously!

So, here it is cooled, bottled, sealed and ready for le Frigidaire! Tomorrow, I present the taste test and mix up a few new drinks. So excited!

{Edited 10/22}

I was somewhat surprised this morning to find that my Advocaat had "shrunk" significantly- the bottle only looked about half full. I suppose beating the eggs put a lot more air into the whole concoction than I realize, so I must amend my assessment of the quantity produced and say that David's estimation of about 700ml-ish is pretty close; I did use some of the leftovers last night, after filling the bottle, to make the first draft of my MixMo cocktail ;)

The Solstice

The Solstice - A Tipsy Vixen creation

2 oz VeeV Acai Spirit
1.5 oz Jacques Cardin VSOP Cognac
1/2 oz homemade ginger syrup (instructions below)
1/2 oz lemon juice
2 dashes Regan's Orange Bitters



Dayaaaaaaaaamn! Sometimes a girl just can't catch a break... I was supposed to spend the summer solstice whooping it up all Celtic-like with my extended Chicago family, but as luck would have it, instead this girl was bored out of her mind at work. Booooooo!

Not to be subdued so easily, I went home and tied one on anyway with my other VeeV concoction. It isn't that I didn't like this drink; quite the contrary! The gals and I both agreed that the Ringwald was just more appropriate for the contest at hand. That said, I was really proud of this one too, and knew I could still roll it out to celebrate the upcoming holiday for which it's named.

Maybe it was a little nerdy of me, but when I saw the pretty yellow color, and tasted the warm citrusy blend of the cognac, ginger and fruits, the 15 year-old fluffy-bunny pagan still hiding somewhere in my psyche got all excited and glommed onto the whole solar thing. The rest of me decided that it was also a very summery drink in it's own right, and decided to indulge her.

For this one, I tried my hand at making ginger syrup: the experiment was successful for the drink at hand, but unfortunately the syrup starts to lose it's spiciness rather quickly and therefore it's potency in cocktails. I'll have to continue exparmentin'! as grandad would say, to solve that problem...

Anyway, you can make up a few ounces of ginger syrup rather easily like this:

Mash up about 6 ounces of fresh ginger root.
Heat about 1/2 a cup of water in a saucepan over medium-low heat, and completely dissolve 1 cup of sugar. Add the ginger and let it simmer very gently for about 20 minutes. Strain, cool, and bottle in a sterilized container.

Feel free to mix up a Solstice, and share your comments or suggestions below!

The Ringwald

A Tipsy Vixen creation

1 oz VeeV Açai Spirit
1 oz Broker's London Dry Gin
1/2 oz lemon juice
1/2 oz Flora syrup
12 drops of Bittermens Burlesque bitters


Cast your vote once daily here until June 3rd!



I was only 8 years old when Pretty In Pink was released, but I was already well familiar with Molly Ringwald; for whatever reason, my mother couldn't stand her and wasn't shy about discussing it, so naturally I thought she was the bee knees! To me, she seemed so grown-up, the epitome of cool and sophistication. There was something quirky and approachable about her that boys liked, and she was so very much the Average-Girl's girl; she wasn't the conventional beauty, but you wanted to be her, or at the very least be her friend. And then there's that oh-so-famous dress...




I started out this VeeV cocktail contest very much inspired by a Mojito variation served last summer at 676 Restaurant and Bar, called the Eco-Mojito. It was made with muddled mint and limes as you might expect, but with VeeV spirit instead of rum, topped with club soda and accompanied by cucumber. It was delicious. But the more I sniffed and sampled the VeeV, the more I was attracted to fruitier and more floral avenues. I played around a bit with some cognac and citrus, and came up with a rather tasty combination (I'll get into that one later this week,) but the favorite among some friends of mine was this little pink concoction.

If you remember from last week, I very quickly became obsessed with the floral angle, perhaps spurred on by the Mixology Monday challenge earlier this month: when I discovered the Bittermens Burlesque bitters contained both hibiscus and Açai, I was hell-bent. I ordered a bottle immediately from The Boston Shaker, and set to work making homemade syrups to experiment with. My favorite to make was the Flora syrup, which is essentially hibiscus with a little cinnamon and licorice for zing. I used Tea Forte Flora tea to make it, simply steeping 2 tea bags in 1 cup of boiling hot water. After removing the tea bags, I added 2 cups of white granulated sugar, and heated until sugar dissolved completely (perhaps it goes without saying, but let the syrup cool completely before you go dumping it into your mixing tin with ice, mmm'kay? Oh, and Captain Obvious also says to store it in the fridge.)

Ask just about any cocktail enthusiast, or bartender worth their salt, and they'll tell you that fresh squeezed citrus juice is essential in a drink. They aren't wrong! I suppose bottled juice is fine for everyday consumption (I keep it on hand at home for those moments when I don't have fresh lemons or limes, which is a lot, not going to lie) but it really, honestly, TRULY does make a difference to squeeze fresh lemon and lime juices for your cocktails. It's really quick if you get yourself one of those little hand-press types (kind of like a garlic press I guess,) and set aside a couple of small bottles to strain into and store them in.

I like to recycle and re-purpose the glass bottles from condiments like vinegars, chili oil, and grenadine because they're just the right size to store a few at a time in the fridge without hogging a ton of space, and they hold just enough juice/syrup to use for a few cocktails at a time. Less waste all around! But seriously, squeeze fresh for this; you won't regret it....

I enlisted my good friends Jennifer and Caroline to taste test with me (check out their respective blogs Thin Invisible Steel and Numinous Wilds) and they thought that the Ringwald tastes a bit like pink lemonade with lavender. I'd have to agree, and am really happy with the way that both the fruity and the floral flavors I was enjoying in the VeeV really come forward in the drink, but aren't too sweet or cloying. In fact; Caroline, who hates gin with a vehement passion, enjoyed the drink and was able to appreciate the floral and botanical notes of the gin in a way she hadn't been able to before.

Ultimately, I'm really pleased with the results of this adventure. I think that The Ringwald, while being a little bit of an oddball also manages to be approachable and delightfully sweet and snappy. A bit like it's namesake :)