Sangria… The drink of the Gods!

That’s what I felt when I first tasted this amazing drink. And indeed it was. Given how I discovered it, and all the memories attached with this drink.

I tasted Sangria, a wine cocktail couple of years ago during our (the husband and yours truly) short stay in Hong Kong. We used to eat out quite a bit back then, and it was a routine to walk up and down the SoHo in search of a good place. Well, not finding one was kinda tough given that SoHo had hundreds of restaurants , but we always were looking for some place which had a vegetarian menu slightly more than just a dish. It was during one of those searches that we saw Life Cafe, a restaurant which served only organic food with a slightly impressive vegetarian menu, and a great drinks menu. Only after we tasted our first sip of wine and took our first bite there did we wonder how the hell on earth did we miss that place when we had walked the same road atleast thrice a week! No, this is not about the restaurant, it was about the food there and the wonderful drink called Sangria we had discovered there.

Baileys Irish cream–Homemade!

Yes… I did it! Baileys at home. And it is awesome :-D

Though it is not anywhere near to making your own liquor (like the wine-making experience, which did not turn out great, btw, I still haven’t been able to finish it or serve it to anyone), this is the closest I got to making an awesome drink.

I obviously did not have access to Irish whiskey, so I had to make do with the Scotch one. I also skipped the chocolate syrup, and added 2 tsps of instant coffee instead.

Recipe Courtesy – Cupcake Project

Ingredients
1 C (or 200ml) light cream (I used Amul cream)
14 oz (or 400 gm) sweetened condensed milk (1 tin of Milkmaid)
2 C whiskey (I used Blender’s Pride)
2 tbsp instant coffee
2 T Hershey's chocolate syrup (optional)
1 t vanilla
1 t almond extract

Instructions
Combine all ingredients in a blender and set on high speed for 30 seconds.
Bottle in a tightly sealed container and refrigerate. Shake before using.
Apparently, it stays good for upto 2 months.

Since I did not use any chocolate and it was only coffee, this bottle of Baileys tasted very coffee-ish, and was perfect for after-dinner-drink, with some ice cubes. I also added a little more alcohol than what was in the recipe, it had a distinct musky whiskey-ish flavour too.

So when I had this alongside the original Baileys I had , they both looked and tasted similar. Very similar.

And now, am set. No more Baileys from Duty-free. :-)

However, after seeing the amount of cream and condensed milk that goes into this one, I doubt if I will drink it as often as I thought I would.

Even liquor now adheres to the law – the law which says that –

Thou shalt fall out of love with a dish the minute thou learneth to maketh it.

Update: Though I originally posted this post on Nov 26th, I got some great shots of the Liqueur only y’day. There was no way, I was going to let the pics go waste, and hence reposting with slight changes to the recipe and new pics. :)