S.KRAUSE

Booze and Spam

My bus to the transfer point arrives at 10–12 after, and I need a few minutes to cross the street and parking lot to get to the store. The next bus back leaves at a quarter to, so I have about twenty minutes of shopping before I need to get to the checkout line, unless I want to spend a whole hour there.

I needed some Worcester(shire) sauce for meat loaf and similar items, but every brand available contained HFCS, even the official brand, Lea and Perrins, in its paper wrapping. So I just went for a cheap version.

Booze:

I do not recall the exact recipe for creating a coffee liqueur that tastes as good as Kahlua but which costs about one third as much. The approximation is as follows.

• water
• instant coffee
• sugar
• corn syrup
• vanilla extract
• grain alcohol

Bring five cups of water and about 1 cup instant coffee to a boil; simmer about ten minutes. Add four cups of water, two cups of granulated sugar, and two cups of corn syrup. Go another ten minutes and remove from heat.

Add one tablespoon of vanilla and a vanilla bean, or just go for about two tablespoons of vanilla extract. Once the liquid is room temperature, add one liter (one bottle) of grain alcohol (190 proof) to create a drink that is stronger than coffee liqueur; if this is not available, Bacardi 155 is a good alternative, and produces a beverage that is about as strong as regular coffee liqueur.

Once the liquid is mixed, let it sit for a while. Then pour into three bottles and refrigerate. A day later it is quite drinkable, but it is really good after a week.

The part of the recipe about which I am not certain is the amount of water, which at first seems a bit on the low side—9 cups of water, before reduction, and 2 of corn syrup, so let's just say 10 cups of liquid, which would be five pints or two and a half quarts, perhaps two quarts if we boil off enough, and then a liter of booze. Since in the end we want three bottles, so about three liters / three quarts, this recipe is close ... tinker at will (at least until I get something more precise).

Spam/Scam of the day:

I love all the variations on the Nigerian 419 scam that are out there. They are morality tales, really, which is perhaps another reason (besides stupidity) why people actually fall for them.

Poor Esther is dying not due to ignorance, but due to Ignorance ... of CANCER OF THE LUNGS, not mere lung cancer, which is also quite the death sentence, or so I hear. Her body is so fucked that adjectives have become nouns in her presence, and she has a failed immune. She has little time remaining—by the time you or I read this it could be too late—and will die not just soon, but soonest (not just sooner, even).

Since I do not own a MOBILE PHONE I am unable to aid poor Esther Johnson, but perhaps you, dear reader, possess a kinder soul than I (and a MOBILE PHONE).

—January 4 2007