Culinary Adventures with Camilla

Okay, so Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I don't love the candy; but I love that it heralds a change in the seasons for us. And when I was prepping for our annual Halloween camping trip, I decided that I wanted to bring a new-to-us liqueur from sipping from our glass skull glasses. I stood, staring at the shelves lined with all sorts of beautifully-hued liqueurs I'd never seen. Liquore Strega is my usual Halloween go-to. But this time, as I wrote, I wanted something we'd never had before. I finally decided on this... St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram Allspice Dram is an allspice liqueur made in Jamaica. It's highly spiced and very sweet - with a potent aroma of allspice, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. It was delicious. Jake said it tasted like Christmas in a bottle. I have to agree. Maybe this will make great Christmas presents for some friends!

Triantafyllo is a thick, concentrated dark pink syrup made from the extract of the Cyprus (Damascus) rose. During the summertime, Cypriots mix it with cold milk as a refreshing sweet cordial. As it's the first day of summer - Happy Summer Solstice! by the way - I figured I'd muddle my way through a Camilla-version. I know that everything I read differentiated Triantafyllo from rosewater. But I had to use what was in my cupboard. And I used fresh berries for that gorgeous pink color! 1/4 rose water 1 C fresh raspberries 1/2 C organic granulated sugar   Boil those into a syrup. Push the raspberries through the strainer to get all of the liquid out of them. Reserve.   When you're ready to serve. Use 1 ounce of syrup and top the cordial glass off with cold milk.   Dylan was delighted. "Mom, these taste just like the raspberry-rose cupcakes from ButtercupCakes! Good job!" Well, that wasn't quite what I was going for, but that was a nice...