A Bitter Spirit

Day 24: Melchior

Well it's our final cocktail today.  Can you flipping believe it?  We can't believe this is the end.  Thanks to all of you for following along with us as we went about this project.  Hopefully, you enjoyed the journey as well as found inspiration and a little mirth.  And with that, it's Christmas Eve, so let's get to it!

The final cocktail is based on the final Magi, Melchior.  Tradition holds that Melchior's gift to Jesus and his family was gold.  Given that, we wanted to make a gold colour cocktail with some echoes of Middle Eastern spice.  We decided to infuse some vodka with chai tea and combine that with ginger liquer to heighten the spice profile and some pear liqueur to sweeten it and give it a golden colour.

Melchior Cocktail:

• 2 oz chai infused vodka
• 1 oz ginger liqueur
• 1/2 oz pear liqueur
• Bittered Sling Lem-Marrakesh bitters
• 1 tsp powdered ginger
• 1 tbsp sugar
• cocktail glass

Combine the powdered ginger and sugar in a bowl.  Moisten the rim of the cocktail glass with water and coat it with the ginger and sugar mixture.  Pour the vodka, ginger liqueur and pear liqueur into a cocktail shaker with ice.  Shake until chilled and pour into the rimmed glass.  Top with five drops of the bitters.

Cocktail Notes:
To make chai infused vodka,  put one chai tea bag into a cup of vodka and let it steep for 2 hours.  

Per our usual modus operandi, we tried several different bitters to see what would work with this cocktail (you'll note that we got out our full arsenal of Bittered Sling bitters):

• Bittered Sling Moondog Bitters - Pretty good.
• Bittered Sling Lem-Marrakesh Bitters - YES!
• Bittered Sling Denman Bitters - Again, pretty good, but not realising the full potential of the drink.
• Bittered Sling Plum & Rootbeer Bitters - No. Flattens out to nuances and emphasizes the sweet.
• Coster's Blackstrap Ginger Bitters - nice and ginger-y, but not perfect.

Our Melchior got its start with this cocktail published in Marie Claire - the Winter Wonderland. The chai-infused vodka and pear liqueur combo really spoke to us, but we had some deep reservations about the creme de menthe. So we swapped that for ginger (which is a little more "Far Eastern") and made a few other tweaks (including bitters) to arrive at our Melchior.

Inspiration:
You knew it was coming … we have one more version of "We Three Kings" that we wanted to share. This time, the incomparable Ella Fitzgerald.

Happy Christmas to you and yours.

Day 22: Kaspar

We're down to the final three of our calendar, and we wanted to finish with a flourish. So we're invoking the legend of the Three Wise Men of the East, aka The Magi, as the theme for our remaining cocktails. According to the Bible, wise men visited the Baby Jesus after his birth and presented him with three gifts.

Day 21: Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

The final spirit to visit Scrooge is the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.  Hooded and mute, the ghost arrives in a phantasmal mist and shows Scrooge a number of individuals rejoicing and pilfering belongings from a recently deceased individual.  The revelation that the man who died and of whom the others spoke so unkindly was, in fact, Scrooge himself causes his change in character.

Day 18: Bob Cratchit

Bob Cratchit doesn’t have the easiest life. He’s poor, his kid is sick and his boss is a jerk. Like the jerkiest jerk in Jerktown. But somehow, he pushes through. And if anyone needs a drink after work, it’s him!

Day 17: Hermey

How do you solve a problem like Hermey? You know, Hermey. The misfit elf from Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? Anyway...here’s a man, er, elf who doesn’t like his job and clearly cares more about his hair than his fellow elves do. And haven’t we all been in his shoes? That’s probably why we can relate to Hermey so well. We’ve all been that guy at some point in our lives.

Day 16: Clarice

Elizabeth has Mr. Darcy.  Ron has Hermoine.  Katniss has both Peeta and Gale.  And Rudolph has Clarice (and we're not talking about Jody Foster in Silence of the Lambs either!). Clarice is the fetching doe who doesn’t care that Rudolph’s honker is bright red beacon. She even defies her parents' orders and joins the search party for her crimson-beaked beau. For that,  she definitely earns a place on Santa’s Nice List and a spot on our advent calendar.

Day 12: Nutcracker Prince

The premise of The Nutcracker has got to be every child’s fantasy. What kid doesn’t want their favorite toy to come to life? Of course, today it would be Transformers, Barbie and He-Man action figures. Wait, do kids still play with action figures? Does anyone out there know what Transformers are? Hmmm...maybe we’re showing our age. Regardless, the Prince is the last character from The Nutcracker in our calendar.

Day 9: The Grinch

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch...For over 50 years, the story of the Grinch has been a part of Christmas. Jealous of the Whos, the Grinch (with his loyal dog Max in tow) set about stealing their Christmas. But Christmas morning, as the presentless Whos joyfully sing, the Grinch realizes that there is more to Christmas than just presents and his heart famously grows three sizes.

Day 6: Yukon Cornelius

The first few days of our calendar highlighted some holiday characters who, in our opinion, made Santa's Naughty List. To varying degrees, their actions had negative consequences in each of their stories. But, it being Christmas, each character was eventually redeemed.

Now we move into our next group: the Loveable Lugs. These are guys who just can't seem to catch a break but are ultimately endearing for the way they keep plodding through life. Whether they're buffoonish, bumbling or not all together bright, we usually see some part of ourselves in them and really want them to win.

The holiday special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was rife with memorable supporting characters who, like Rudolph himself, felt like misfits. One such character was the boisterous prospector, Yukon Cornelius, who rescues Rudolph and his merry band. This peppermint-loving galoot helps to save the day (and the Abominable Snowman) while delivering some memorable lines (“Now I'm off to get my life-sustaining supplies: cornmeal and gun powder and hamhocks and guitar strings.”) How could you not help but love this lug of a guy?