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a whisky by any other name, would not taste as wondrous

I found myself visiting my parents in the land of my birth during this past weekend in order to attend the wedding of an old high school friend. It was, on the whole, a glorious weekend to visit the land of my birth -- the weather was relatively sunny and mild, and, the leaves were in fine color. The wedding itself proved to be an excellent chance to catch up with old friends not seen for many years. We've all put on weight, and many of us are getting married (this wedding was one of four between July 2003 and July 2004, including mine to Fiancee S.) Nearly all of us are doing well however, and a fun time was had by all.

One of the more curious artifacts discovered on this trip was a most odd and unusual recipe for a dram known as Carrot Whiskey. I found it in H.E. Bravery's 1961 tome Successful Wine Making At Home (10th edition 1981) from Arco Publishing, New York, NY, USA on a page marked (ironically) with a ticket stub from my Doctoral commencement ceremony of a few years ago. The book was sitting atop a pile of cookbooks on a shelf opposite the computer in my parents' house where I am typing this now.

In order to fully appreciate the probable virtues of this liqueur, I offer up the following complete text of the recipe (reprinted without permission):

The valuable contribution of Noel Whitcomb, the famous columnist of the Daily Mirror.

6 lb carrots
1 gal water
1 tbl raisins
1 lb wheat
1 oz yeast
2 oranges
2 lemons
4 lb sugar

Scrub the carrots clean - don't peel them - and mash them. Put them in the water, bring them to the boil, and simmer gently until tender. Then strain off the liquid (you can use the carrots for food - most dogs love them). Into the fermenting vessel, put the sugar and sliced lemons and oranges and pour the hot liquid over them. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and stand until lukewarm. Then add the chopped raisins and wheat and sprinkle the yeast on top. Leave to ferment for fifteen days, then skim, strain, and bottle.

To get the fullest flavor, keep it for nearly a year if you can.

I like a good whisky. In fact, I was quite pleased to hear Fiancee S. tell me that one of her relatives in the Seattle-Tacoma area is ready to open up a bottle of the 21 year old bottling of Bushmills (available only at the distillery) should I ever visit. Somehow, I don't think that this "carrot" whisky is in the same league.

I'll leave it to the more enterprising reader of the World Wide Web to determine if this assertion is true.

said drgeek on 2003-10-13 at 11:36 a.m.

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