“Man plans and god laughs,” the old saying goes. I believe it. I did not have anything terribly important to do today, but I had a lot of little things I was going to try to knock off the old “if you do it, you can quit worrying about it” list. Nobody told me that as you grow older you’d spend more and more time thinking about the things you still need to do. Hard to believe, after I spent so much time working on being carefree. I guess it comes for us all in the end. When the storm woke me up at 5 AM, I figured my day of farmwork was pretty well shot. I knew it was going to be a “good day for ducks” as my grandpa would say. Still, there is something to be said for taking a zero day and letting the work worry about itself. I reckon it will still be there when things dry out. So, in the spirit of taking it as easy as you can, won’t you join me now as we stand and make the Rescue Team.
This one come to us from Death & Co.‘s Alex Jump who says this peanut butter inspired riff on the classic daiquiri is the best cocktail cocktail she ever created. It seems simple enough to construct, once you make your peanut butter washed rum. To do that you can either go with 15 grams of peanut butter to a liter of rum or do some math to make a smaller amount. I started with about four ounces of Appleton Estate Rum and a teaspoon of Simply Jif Peanut Butter whipped together with the inversion blender and left to sit on the counter for about six hours before moving to the freezer overnight. The next day I strained it through a coffee filter, twice. It’s time consuming but worked. Jump suggests then running it in your centrifuge to remove any leftover solids, but I don’t have a home centrifuge, so I had to muddle through with slightly cloudy peanut butter rum. I hope to be better, someday. Between the double strain, a lack of patience with the last of the mix and forgetting to cover the jar, I lost a little over an ounce of the rum in the process. Your mileage may vary, of course, but try to plan accordingly and don’t make “just enough” or you won’t have enough.
Grab your tins and pop in 2 ounces of your peanut butter washed rum, 1/2 an ounce of Banane du Bresil, 1/4 ounce of simple syrup, 3/4 of an ounce of fresh squeezed lime juice and 2 drops of 18-21 Havana & Hide Bitters. Add ice and shake to the gentle sounds of the Eurhythmics and “Here Comes the Rain Again” as another round from this never ending storm falls outside. When well chilled, double strain into a Nick & Nora and garnish with a lime wedge.
That is every bit as good as I imagined. Almost like a peanut butter and jelly thing, with a nice citrus finish. You can absolutely taste the peanut butter and the banana playing well together, as they always do; with a nice bright citrus note for a sweet but tart finish. That just works all the way around and “suits me right down to the ground,” as Wyatt Earp would say, allegedly.
I had so much planned today that I was trying to figure out if I could get out of some of it, but the rain came down the waterspout and washed the productivity out. I guess that works. I guess it will have to, cause not much else is getting done outside. As Lyle would say, “I wasn’t good, but I had good intentions.” Don’t get me wrong, there are a million things that need to be done here in the house, but I hadn’t planned on doing inside work today, so it seems kind of wrong to do those things. Disrespectful of the farm work that is no longer with us. It’s just too soon to clean off desks or organize the shoes in the closet, patch that crack in the wall or straighten up my stuff in the den; we need time to grieve for the tractoring and the Boy Scout helping and the tire hauling and errand running that was lost. I think I will just make another drink and contemplate my options while I watch the rain fall, it is so soothing, I might even need a nap. Y’all stay safe, stay dry and stay sane, my friends.
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