Sweet music
I’m not sure what Atsushi was looking for when he found the Mozart Liqueur page, but he thought some of the recipes sounded soothing to the throat, so we picked up a bottle on the way home last night.
I’m being generous with the word “recipe” there, BTW. The recipe for Hot Mozart Milk is, essentially “Dump as much Mozart liqueur as you like into 30 ml of hot milk.” Tasty, to be sure, but more like what one would usually call a “serving suggestion.” If you want to make even less effort, you can make an Angel’s Kiss: “Dump 3 parts Mozart liqueur into a glass and float 1 part cream on top.” For dessert tonight, after an arduous day of shopping, we’re about to have Mozart Ice Cream, the recipe for which is–how’d you guess?–“Slap as much ice cream as you like in a bowl and pour 45 ml of Mozart liqueur on top.” Well, okay, that one’s a little more complex because step 3 in the instructions tells you to add a spoon (JIC you thought enjoying this treat the authentic Salzburg way required you to do the no-hands thing and stick your face in the bowl). Priceless.
Completely off topic, but this is calling out for mockery.
It’s a post from the blog of these guys.
My parents brought me back a bottle of Mozart liqueur when they went to Vienna. I wish I had had all of those recipes! I ended up just drinking it.
Really? See, if someone gave me a bottle of chocolate liqueur, I think my first thought would be, Hmmm…. This would be just the thing for DIRTYING UP a nice glass of WHOLESOME, INGENUOUS, ALL-AMERICAN milk!
That probably says something disturbing about me.
Is Mozart Liqueur better, in your opinion, than Bailey’s?
It’s not better or worse… it’s just different. Like apples and oranges. Or something like that.
Sean, if I had been thinking straight (oh, wait… ) I would have done the same thing. (By the way, that’s how I knew when I was an adult– when I discovered I could drink all the chocolate milk I wanted, and nobody could say anything).
Rondi, I don’t have them lined up in front of me to test at the moment, but if memory serves, Bailey’s is creamier and more milk-chocolatey, Mozart is more dark-chocolatey, and (though you didn’t ask about it, it’s the other major one I know of) Godiva is like European chocolate made with water. Obviously, a girl needs all three to suit her kaleidoscopic moods.
John, with me it’s Coke. My parents were big into health food when I was growing up, at least until I was in junior high school or so. They weren’t ogres about it–if we had people over or there was some special occasion, they’d buy a 2-liter of Coke, but when that was gone, there was no more for months.
I now am 33 and live several thousand miles across the Pacific, and I still get this naughty, decadent thrill whenever I decide to throw a bottle of Coke in the basket at the supermarket. What’s weird is that I don’t even notice if I get a Coke with my meal at McDonald’s or pick up a can when I get a bento at the convenience store–that’s different. It’s the idea of having a bottle that contains several servings, in the refrigerator, that I can pour large glasses from whenever I want.
My husband, who grew up totally abstemious (poor thing) until I corrupted him has actually made up a recipe for chocolate liqueur. It involves cocunut milk, crushed ice and other stuff I can’t remember and he calls it a Dark Lady. (And in case you’re wondering yes, there is also a Fair Youth — which involves WHITE chocolate liqueur and other stuff I can’t remember. I think, possibly, pineapple. He has the recipe somewhere, with notes on possible improvements. Because he’s compulsive, that’s why.) It’s one of those “oh, nice and sweet” kind of drinks, until the alcohol hits like you an anvil dropped on road runner.
I think — and this comes from over twenty years of living with the man — that this is the whole point of the drink. He enjoys getting our friends drunk in a sneaky fashion. First time he introduces anyone to this drink they guzzle. They never do this again.
P.
So you’re a family that threatens Number 1 Son with a mohawk and finds it funny to get friends plastered on what they think is a milkshake? A very clear, if disturbing, picture is starting to emerge here. I don’t suppose your name is Osborne? : )
The big joke among our friends, by contrast, is that Atsushi and I average out to a normal drinker. He’s one of those Asians who turn red and fall asleep after a full glass of wine. I…well, I have the English and German and Polish genes, and the Irish surname is obviously the bequest of some ancestor, so while I’m a moderate drinker, when holiday party time comes and it becomes an all-day thing, I can put them away without showing any outward sign of having imbibed. Drives my Japanese friends crazy.
It’s MUCH worse than that. We look like a nice, normal family.
People continuously tell us how polite and well behaved the boys are. (Partly because we put “expressing” themselves as a low priority below “behaving like human beings and not out of control monkeys” in public… and even in private.) Total strangers whose kids go to school with my boys call me to tell me what gentlemen they are. (I suspect there’s something like the Calvin and Hobbs replicator involved and the kid who goes to school is not actually my kid, but that’s something else.)
P.
Well, then, I don’t suppose your name is Kinsell?
Seriously, my parents used to get that all the time when my brother (six years younger than I) and were kids. People would come up to them in restaurants when we were getting ready to leave and, looking positively dumbstruck, say, “We’d just like you to know you have the most well-behaved children we’ve seen in years.” (The ‘rents, being somewhat less well-behaved, could never resist the urge to crack, “You haven’t seen them at home.”)
I think part of it–I’ve gone off on this before, though I don’t whether it’s been a rant topic of mine lately–is that they acted like adults and presented adulthood as something to aspire to. If you behaved well enough to be around the adults, you might be allowed to stay at the table when everyone was talking politics and drinking coffee and hear one or two catty remarks that you would then have to keep to yourself. That was in addition to not chewing with your mouth open and stuff.
Well, in our kids’ cases we’ve always made it clear that we’re not raising children, we’re raising adults. Our objective is to make them adults, not to be their “best buddies” which seems to be what most of their friends’ parents want to do. Weirdly, their friends love being at our house and getting to sit at kitchen table while I’m cooking and talk about history or books — because I discuss stuff with them as if they were grownups. And I expect them to make logical arguments (well, what passes for logic around me.) And if they’re good my husband teaches them piano stuff.
Oh, on the drinks issues — the thing is my husband WARNS friends it’s alcoholic. It’s just so … gentle-tasting they never believe it. Fact he’s not the… ahem… lush in the family only makes it more stealth.
P.