Spiced Honey Bourbon

This is probably my favorite fall drink I've concocted. I've been making this for several years now, and have had many requests for the recipe.

Start off with some apple or white grape juice in a small sauce pan. This is just to give the mulling spices something thin to simmer in.

Add mulling spices, simmer and stir for a while. I've bought mulling-spice mixes from the spice house, containing a mixture of cloves, orange peel, cinnamon and a few others. Typically I double or triple the amount it calls for - usually ending up with about 4 mounded tablespoons worth. Not going for subtlety here.

After simmering for a half hour or so, turn off the heat before stirring in the honey - you don't want it to caramelize on the the hot bottom of the pan. Slowly stir in about a pound of honey - again, no so much with the subtlety. Heat it back up until it stirs smoothly. If its fresh honey, you'll need to get it hot enough to sanitize it, and a good breakdown is here. I tend to just boil it for a while, it kills everything off, reduces haze, and I don't have to be as careful with a thermometer. Don't let it boil over though, as it makes a serious mess.

I put a bit of Jim Beam into 2 empty 750ml bottles, so the hot honey mixture won't crack the glass when I pour it in. These bottles are from Knob Creek - the squared-off ones fit nicely in the fridge, but any others will do. You can also add some of the whiskey to the mix in the pan as its cooling - you don't want to boil off the alcohol, but the thinner mixture is much easier to pour.


Split the cooled-off mixture evenly between the two bottles. This funnel has a strainer at the bottom, but in previous batches I've poured in the mulling spices using a spouted measuring cup - you'll just have sediment at the bottom.


The two darker finished bottles, from a full 1.75L. The remainder in the large bottle is the volume of honey and juice added to the other two, weakening the bourbon somewhat.


Add a few ounces to fresh apple cider and heat it. I happened to have some whipped cream around, which was nice but unnecessary. Its really good, these can disappear quite quickly.

Mandarin oranges with Vodka

Vodka-soaked mandarin oranges, over homemade dark chocolate ice cream. Frozen before serving.

This was actually unintentional - I had already made the dessert but needed to run a quick errand, so I tossed it in the freezer uncovered - hence all of the frost. Because of their alcohol content, the oranges don't freeze completely - so they end up with a quite interesting, slushy texture. It was quite good.

A bit of simple sugar added to the mix helps the orange flavor to stay intact - between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total volume works well. I've been using Svedka vodka for a number of years now - its quite good, and easily the best balance of price vs quality that I've found. I saved the light syrup that the oranges came in to make some other drinks.

Dark Chocolate and Bourbon Raspberries

Bourbon-soaked raspberries, on homemade dark chocolate ice cream.

The ice cream is ridiculous, a modification of a recipe I found on flickr here. I used 72% dark chocolate bars, shaved and melted them into heavy cream, many heaping spoonfuls of ghirardelli cocoa, with an 8-egg yolk custard to go with it... its dark, bitter, and ridiculously rich. Easily the richest ice cream I've ever tasted.

Infused fruit.

Infusing fresh fruit is one of the most wonderful things I've found for making desserts. You end up with booze-soaked fruit, and fruit-infused booze. Its a win-win.

Raspberry is one of my favorite flavors. Its even my favorite fake flavor. There's nothing quite like nice ripe raspberries - and you can keep them around much longer when they're soaking in bourbon.

Pick them up when you can find them, and rinse them well, picking out the ones that are getting soft. Go ahead and just eat those right away - they will get softer over time, and the ones that are already a bit mushy won't hold up.

Then find some kind of container to store them in. I first experimented with this using whatever was around; old pickle jars, pasta sauce containers, etc. I recently found these semi-disposable, stackable screw-top containers at the grocery store, and they work great.


In this case, I was soaking the raspberries in bourbon. I've been using Jim Beam - a great balance of price vs quality, for the purpose. I initially tried these soaking them straight 80-proof liquor, but the alcohol really does overpower the fruit flavor... so it helps to mix something sweet into your chosen booze. I often have a few pre-made squeeze bottles of simple syrup around, and this has worked great for fruit infusions.

Its best to avoid stirring the fruit container as it will start to break the fruit up (raspberries especially). Either mix it in the container before you add the fruit, or mix it separately and pour it over the top. If you mix directly in the container, the volume you'll need is just about shy of halfway. Top it off with liquor after you fill it with fruit.

Seal it, stick it in the fridge and forget about it for a while. It tends to take a few days to really infuse in, and is even better after at least a week.

Ice cream on brownie.

Brownies with vanilla ice cream, doused in a raspberry liqueur. It doesn't have to be fancy. The liqueur is thick enough to remain on top of the ice cream, but it still soaks down into the brownie. Yum.

Ice cream with berries.

Vanilla ice cream, bourbon-soaked blackberries, with a raspberry liqueur. In a glass.

Clicking the image links to the gallery on flickr.

Welcome to EightyProofDessert!

I love a good dessert, and I love a good drink. Over the past few years, as an evening treat I've been creating things that blur the line between these. I happen to work as a designer and photographer, and so I've started photographing these creations as well. Why not have another blog for them?

While starting this up and searching for a good name (thanks Mel!), I was joking with my wife - I'm 30. Its like my 21-year-old self just teamed up with my 9-year-old self.

Enjoy.