The following is an extended version of the article in our December 2020 issue.
Photo by Hannah Pemberton via Unsplash
At heart, we’re all just kids looking forward to snow days, cozy slippers and hot cocoa with marshmallows. And while that feeling may never diminish, now there’s the option to add booze.
At Soul Taco’s holiday pop-up in the former Belle space (700 E. Main St.), co-owner Nar Hovnanian captures the essence of the season with a dark chocolate and sea salt hot chocolate, made with Uncle Nearest Tennessee whiskey. (And there's whiskey in the marshmallows, too.)
Coziness and tradition go hand in hand with hot, boozy beverages. Almost every bar serves some version of wine mulled with sugar and spices in winter. Mattias Hägglund, co-owner and barkeep at The Jasper, makes glögg — in Scandinavian culture, it’s traditionally only consumed between Santa Lucia (Dec. 13) and the new year.
Making Mulled Wine
Simmer a bottle of red wine with spices such as cinnamon, cloves and star anise in a saucepan for about 10 minutes. Strain the spices and add a fruit-friendly spirit (6 to 10 ounces per bottle of wine) such as brandy, vodka, gin or tequila.
You can also add liqueur such as Grand Marnier. Then stir in sugar or honey to taste.
Pro tip: Always use whole spices — powdered spices turn into mud.
From mulled wine and cider to the good ol’ hot toddy and imaginative concoctions bubbling through a coffee siphon, if there’s a way to add heat, creative mixologists will test it out.
For Dan Harthausen of Restaurant Adarra, it was a trial by fire. One of his assignments for the winter menu was to create a “blazer,” a drink made with sugar, boiling water and high-proof spirits ignited and cascaded back and forth between two tin cups until the blue fire goes out and the drink is warm, softened and caramelized, for a powerful multisensory experience.
Disclaimer: Neither this publication nor the author suggest lighting alcohol on fire at home ... but if you do, keep a lid and an extinguisher nearby.
Although The Jasper isn’t open for dining right now, they’re still slinging drinks from the “lemonade stand” including their hot spiced apple cider (fortified or virgin), the Hagglund Family Glögg and their annual Miracle holiday pop-up menu.
Glögg is all about sharing, Hägglund says. So even if we can’t share a big mug anymore, we’re sharing smaller bottles with our friends around Richmond to drink together remotely. The best traditions are the ones that adapt to circumstance.
Hagglund Family Glögg
Mattias Hagglund, The Jasper
1 bottle fruit-forward red wine
1 bottle full-bodied red wine
325 milliliters aquavit
325 milliliters vodka
4 oranges, zest and juice
2 lemons, zest and juice
Cardamom
Allspice
Clove
In a large stock pot, combine the wine, fruit, and spices and simmer for 10 minutes. Add turbinado sugar to taste. Shut off the heat, strain out the spices, and add the spirits. Store in an airtight bottle.
To serve, reheat on a stove.
As a flourish, ignite the surface with a match and then put the lid on to extinguish.
Foggy Glasses Blazer
Dan Harthausen, Restaurant Adarra
Dan Harthausen at Restaurant Adarra developed this variation on Jerry Thomas’s classic Blue Blazer. Because alcohol evaporates at much lower temperature than water, the steam is flammable. He tosses the liquid blue fire back and forth a couple times and extinguishes it, before the fire can burn the sugar and impart an acrid bitterness.
He was going for something reminiscent of hot cocoa — but without any chocolate. The amaro and whiskey give you that back-tooth bite and the lovely lightly toasty bitterness. Dangerous not only for the fire, but also because it’s eminently sippable.
1 1/2 ounces Old Forester 100 rye
1/2 ounce Plantation OFTD overproof rum
3/4 ounce Meletti amaro
1 teaspoon turbinado syrup
Dash Peychaud’s bitters
2 ounces boiling water
Combine ingredients in a heat-proof vessel with a handle. Ignite the steam and pour slowly into another heat-proof vessel, back and forth three to four times and then use a lid to extinguish the flame.
Alternatively combine ingredients in a small saucepan, ignite, and stir for about 30 seconds before extinguishing with a lid.
Pour into a mug, express an orange peel over the surface, and discard.
Dark Chocolate and Sea Salt Boozy Hot Chocolate
Nar Hovnanian, co-owner of Soul Taco, makes her boozy hot chocolate with dark chocolate, milk, cream, agave syrup and whiskey — topped with whipped cream, sea salt and whiskey marshmallows.
In an homage to the diversity of her team, she uses Uncle Nearest whiskey, a new Black-owned distillery named for and using the historic recipe written by the enslaved man who distilled for Jack Daniels — and who developed the distinct charcoal-filtering method unique to Tennessee whiskey.
Whiskey Marshmallows
Makes one 9-by-13 pan
3 1/2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold whiskey
1/2 cup cold water
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large egg whites
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Oil a 9-by-13-inch baking pan and sprinkle on powdered sugar to cover and coat. Set aside. In the bowl of your electric mixer, pour 1/2 cup cold water and 3 1/2 packs of gelatin. Gently mix with a spoon once, then let sit while you make the sugar mixture.
In a medium pot combine sugar, whiskey, syrup and salt. Heat over low heat and whisk until sugar is dissolved, about three to five minutes.
Turn heat up to medium and let sugar come to a boil. Let it boil for eight to 12 minutes, until it reaches 240 degrees F (measure with a candy thermometer). The mixture will appear to be a lightish brown color — don’t worry, the marshmallows will still be white.
Once mixture is at 240 degrees F, turn off heat and slowly pour the mixture into the mixer bowl over the gelatin while mixing at low speed. Once all of the sugar has been added, turn the mixer to high and beat for for six to eight minutes. The mixture should grow in size and be white and fluffy.
About three to four minutes in, add the egg whites to a separate bowl and beat until stiff peaks form. Once stiff peaks are formed, add egg whites and vanilla extract to the sugar and gelatin mixture and beat until just combined.
Pour marshmallow mix into the 9-by-13 pan. Get as much as you can, then spray a spatula with non-stick spray and smooth the surface. Dust powdered sugar on top and let sit to firm up for three to five hours.
Once firm, turn the pan upside down on a cutting board to release marshmallow rectangle. Cut them into pieces of whatever size you like.
Paul Blumer is a writer and former bartender.
