Still prepping...

I am not sure if it was the simplicity of the previous post that I decided to spike a few more things. I started with the dried bing cherries and moved onto prunes and tea leaves. I have only eaten one rum raisin. I swear. But the other stuff, well, let's just say taste tests are an important part of cooking. The preparation is just combination of ingredients listed, and like in rum raisin, the dry fruit is first scalded and steeped.

The bing...or rather, the bada bing

• 1 cup of dried, bing cherries
• 1/2 cup of vodka
• 2 tbsp of lemon juice
• zest of one lemon

Using lemon here was a choice I made since I have a few ideas of how I am going to be using this. I wanted cherries to be spiked but with a kick of acidity, unlike the rum raisins.

Prune-licious

• 2 cups of prunes
• 1 cup of rum
• 1 cup of table red wine
  
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 1 tsp of grated fresh ginger
• 3 tsp of steeped through whole tea leaves
  

As I was making this, I realized that in taste it started getting close to the Dominican "mamajuana" drink, sans the root. The tea really adds a kick of bitterness here that the root would have imparted. This would be perfect for a meat sauce.