Caroline Cogswell's Celebrated Morning Tonic
(from the kitchen of Mary McGhee)
This recipe originally appeared in Gourmet magazine, but I've tinkered with it enough to call it my own creation. I'm using less simple syrup here than they did, and their version called for twice as much brandy and no rum. I've adjusted the amounts of the spices, too. Sometimes I've added just a touch of chocolate liqueur. You might want to play around with it to suit your own tastes.
2 cups sugar
1 cup water
6 Tbl. instant coffee crystals
1 vanilla bean, split
5-10 whole cloves
10 whole allspice
2 1-inch pieces cinnamon stick
1 cup dark rum
1 cup brandyMake simple syrup by heating sugar and water in a heavy saucepan, stirring to mix. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until sugar is dissolved, about 3 minutes. Add instant coffee and spices and remove from heat. Cool. Add rum and brandy and pour into a glass or ceramic container (not metal or plastic)*. Cap tightly or cover tightly with plastic wrap. Steep for three weeks in a cool, dark place, shaking or swirling around in the container every three days.
Strain out the spices and discard. Line a funnel, a sieve or a coffee cone with a dampened coffee filter** and pour the liqueur through. Change the filter regularly. This is a SLOW process! After filtering, cover tightly and age another three or four weeks (or more--the longer it ages, the better it gets). Makes about 4 cups.
* If you're multiplying the recipe, you will still want to steep it in containers no bigger than about a quart, dividing the spices up between them. The flavor doesn't seem to develop as well in bigger containers. I've bought a box of quart canning jars that I re-use every year.
** When I make this for holiday gifts, I make such a quantity--seven or eight times this recipe--I'd get old and gray waiting for it to filter this way. So I invested around $20.00 in a gold-plated permanent coffee filter (look for them in a gourmet coffee or kitchen store). The results might be a bit more cloudy, but I think it's still perfectly acceptable and it's MUCH faster.