Why serve boring egg nog at your holiday soiree when you can surprise your family and guests with a Latin American Christmas drink? There are plenty of grown-up brews to choose from – from Mexican Rompope to Peruvian Pomace.
Here are three simple recipes that you can make in less than one hour.
The best part about them is that you can spike them with pretty much any spirit or serve them virgin-style, so that kids and non-drinkers can take part in the fun.
Coquito
(My recipe)
Laced with coconut cream and white rum, coquito (Spanish for little coconut) is Puerto Rico’s traditional Christmas libation and answer to American and European egg nog.
Ingredients
6 egg yokes
5 (12 oz) cans evaporated milk
4 tbsp vanilla extract
Lime peel
2 (14 fl oz) cans sweetened condensed milk
2 (15 fl oz) cans cream of coconut
8 oz white rum
8 oz Captain Morgan Spiced Rum (add to taste)
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
In a double boiler, combine egg yolks, vanilla, lime peel and evaporated milk. Stir constantly, until the egg yolks and the milk are thoroughly combined (approximately five minutes). The mixture is ready to be removed from the heat when it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
Be careful not to boil.
Place the container with the mixture into a bowl half-filled with ice water.
Once it cools down, remove the lime peel and add the rest of the ingredients, blending thoroughly the cream of coconut, condensed milk, rum (to taste), cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.
Chill overnight. Makes about 2 gallons.
Sabajon
From the heartland of Colombia comes sabajón, an egg-based creamy cocktail that’s so rich it can be served as a dessert. Its origins can be traced to France, Spain and Italy, where it was known as zabaglione and prepared with sweet Marsala wine.
By the late 1950s, Colombians developed a commercial recipe and bottled it successfully as Sabajón Apolo.
This sweet wonderful drink is mostly served during the Holidays, especially in Bogota, the capital of this South American nation and its surrounding regions.
Ingredients
2 qts whole milk
1 can condensed milk
8 egg yokes, beaten
8 fl oz aged Colombian rum, like Ron Viejo de Caldas
Set aside a large bowl ready to fill with ice at the end of the cooking time.
In a saucepan, simmer whole milk and condensed milk over low heat; do not let the mixture boil (if it starts to boil, take the pan off the heat right away.)
Slowly add a little of the hot milk to the egg yolks to warm them.
Then, very gradually add the egg yolks to the hot milk mixture, being very careful not to boil or scramble eggs.
Whisk in low heat for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly with a whisk.
Remove pan from heat and put pan into large bowl filled with ice to chill the mixture.
Add rum to taste
Pour into a bottle, cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Mexican punch
Chef Lupe, owner of Taco Taco on the Upper East Side, uses fresh fruits for her brew, which is also known as Ponche NavideÑo, a refreshing cocktail that is served in different variations throughout Mexico and Central America. It’s delicious with or without tequila, vodka or rum. But, what’s the point really if it’s not juiced?
Ingredients
1 lb tejocotes (Mexican small crabapples)
1 lb frozen guava
2 Golden Delicious apples, unpeeled, seeded and cut in small chunks
1 lb panela (raw whole sugar with a heavy molasses content)
6 oz raisins
1 sugar cane, peeled and cut in 4 chunks
8 oz pitted prunes
1 cinnamon stick
1 orange rind, without whitish underskin, in small squares
6 whole cloves
1 tsp anise seeds
1 gallon water
Place the crab apples in a pot with water and bring to a boil.
When the water has begun boiling, put in the chunked sugar cane and simmer for 45 minutes.
Add the Golden Delicious apples and the guavas to the brew. Simmer for another 30 minutes.
Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer until cinnamon and cloves release their flavor.
Serve hot.
Optional: You can add a shot of tequila per cup of ponche. Riquisimo!