What do I do with this alcohol?

Cafe Society
1

My mother was cooking some food for a organization dinner, and she used Brandy in the recipe. I’m pretty sure she only used 2 tablespoons of it, so there is plenty left in the large bottle she bought (a 1/5).

My mother doesn’t drink alcohol so she brought it down here and left it at our apartment. What do I do with it? I have drank a small glass of it straight, but I figure it should probably be mixed with something, I just don’t know what.

What do I do with a large bottle of Brandy?

(I guess if worse comes to worse, I could go sell it to the crackheads down the road and tell them it’s “high-class” liquor and overcharge…)

-Brendon

2

Brandy should not be mixed. If you intend to drink it, pour it into a glass, and hold it so that your body heat warms it up first, then enjoy.

If not, cook with it. All manner of sweets and baked goods can be flavored with brandy.

Here is a mess of recipes.

3

Goddamn frames page. You can just search on “brandy” in the “search for recipes” tab.

4

I have four words for you: Chocolate pots de crème. Googling will get you about a thousand recipes.

5

Since when should brandy not be mixed? There are plenty of cocktails that call for brandy. Here’s the Drinkboy page on brandy–drinks that call for it are on the left.

Personally, I’m quite fond of sidecars.

6

Thanks Ogre.

I’ve never had brandy before, but when I tried it in a glass it was cold (mostly from being brought in the car last night when it was so cold out) so I’ll try it warmer…

I figure I’ll end up using it to cook with, so thanks for the recipes as well…

Brendon

7

If you have some spare time, you might also want to try poking through Dale DeGroff’s recipe list.

8

Depends on the brandy, I suppose, but I’ve never, ever had a brandy cocktail that was worth the effort.

9

It’s Christmas. It’s great in eggnog. If you don’t observe Christmas, put it in eggnog anyway and declare your own holiday.

I doubt that brandy bought for cooking is likely to be worthy of snifting.

10

And here’s a pointer to an online version of the oldest known cocktail book (originally published in 1862). I’m not quite sure how the guy who posted it decided on the indexing scheme–brandy appears in more drinks than are listed under the “Brandy drinks” heading.

11

Oooooooh, yeah. I retract my statement. Eggnog is good (really good) with brandy.

12

I’m partial to a brandy Manhattan. Super tasty, and not much effort involved.

13

I like it in hot chocolate…and by that I mean made with quality drinking chocolate or making my own with cocoa powder and sugar.

14

Thirded–that was gonna be my suggestion, and the cheaper the brandy, the better the suggestion. It’s my favorite liquor on a very cold night, but because cheap stuff is horrid and stuff I’m willing to drink starts around $18 for a small bottle, I don’t have it very often; for $18, I can buy a gigantic bottle of passable rum.

Daniel

15

Do you warm the egg-nog/brandy concoction?

Will it work ok in non-dairy egg nog (the soy milk kind?) (lactosintolerancy is a factor…heh)

Brendon

16

I make my egg nog with brandy and rum, but I don’t heat it; instead, I chill all of the ingredients beforehand and then let it sit in the refrigerator all day (or overnight, as the case may be) before drinking it.

17

Thanks Skipmagic.
I’ve got pre-made nog but I’m chilling the brandy and rum to try that out.
It’s a few hours since I started this post, and I’ve tried a couple things…

Hunter Hawk - you are right, sidecars are pretty good.

Ogre - it’s not too bad at room temperature. I think that my first taste was a little biased, since I’ve always been told that brandy wasn’t worth buying (my father is a beer or rum guy - every now and then some vodka as well, and I usually listen to him when it comes to drinks)

Brendon

18

If it’s good brandy, drink it straight. If not, pour it into coffee.

19

Brandy and ginger ale works for me.