This holiday happy hour is a Flaming Gingerbread Martini, inspired by December’s Food’n Flix movie Krampus (hosted by All Roads Lead to the Kitchen). As you might know already, Krampus is a holiday/comedy/horror movie from 2015 starring Toni Collette and Adam Scott. It’s loosely based on European legends of a horned, devil like creature who was jolly old St. Nick’s counterpart, who took care of the naughty children while St. Nick distributed gifts to the nice children. The movie chronicles the really bad night of a family who have lost the spirit of Christmas and get subjected to Krampus’s minions terrorizing them and eventually dumping them all in a devil ridden pit. Or at least this was what I was able to get from the movie that I mostly watched through my fingers. Yes - it’s over-the-top not-that-scary horror, but I’m easily creeped out and really hate anything that looks like a doll come to life.
I do, however, have a certain fondness for the gingerbread men who wreak havoc throughout the movie, particularly as they end up on fire and run around creating mayhem. I got inspired and started doing research on how to flambe. I kind of thought I might try to make a traditional Christmas pudding and flame it, but then settled on a flambe cocktail. It took a bit of experimentation to figure out the right combination of liquor for it to actually catch on fire. If you are going to light this on fire, it’s definitely most effective to have a liquor that’s high proof layered on the top. I ended up using high proof rum, which catches fire once it’s been heated a bit - which I accomplished with multiple passes of flame over the top. (Use a long match or an Aim n Flame lighter for this).
I was also baking gingerbread cookies, so couldn’t resist making my own havoc-wreaking gingerbread man to hang off the martini glass. After I got over my initial fear of flaming alcohol, Clayton egged me on to let the flames attack the gingerbread man and when we turned off the lights, I got this pic:
Definitely Krampus inspired! I also figured I needed some ornaments strewn around and a few little gingerbread minions to help:
Overall though, I confess that I just liked the color of the flame:
In case you were wondering, the gingerbread man was using gingerbread candy canes as grappling hooks:
As you can probably tell, I had way too much fun with this particular blogging challenge and photo session.
The cocktail itself is perfect for the holidays. It’s not critical to flambe it, though lighting it on fire does bring out a depth of flavor to the rum that I hadn’t expected. And it’s quite the showstopper, too. If you do decide to flambe - be sure to have a fire extinguisher near by, just to be on the safe side.
Ingredients
- 1 ounce Irish Cream liqueur
- 1 ounce gingerbread vodka
- 1 ounce brown sugar simple syrup (recipe below)
- 1/2 ounce rum or spiced rum
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons gingerbread spice
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup water
Instructions
- Wet the rim of a martini glass. Combine the brown sugar and gingerbread spice on a small plate and dip the rim of the glass in the sugar/spice mix to make a sugar rim.
- Add the Irish creme liqueur, the ginger bread vodka and the brown sugar simple syrup to your martini glass, being careful not to disturb the sugar rim. Using the back of a spoon, gently add the rum to the martini glass - as much as possible, you'll want the rum as the top layer as it is the most flammable liqueur in the drink.
- If you choose to light the drink, carefully wave a flame over the top of the drink - just slightly above the ingredients. The alcohol won't catch on fire until it's slightly heated, so this may take a few seconds. Let the drink flame briefly and then blow out the flame. Make sure it is completely out before you drink. Enjoy!
- Combine the brown sugar and water in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar is dissolved. Let cool and then use.
