"Old Snort & Stomp," The One and Only Original Home Baked Amaretto

Not only are you going to get "The Recipe" -- you're going to get the emotional baggage that goes with it.

Gary Rouse gave me The Recipe. We worked together at Texas Instruments. At the time I knew him, Gary was married and had two young boys. I expect he now has grandchildren older than his boys were then. I hope he does, anyway. I've lost touch with them over the years. We were birds of a feather: pragmatic hippies in sheep's clothing with a fairly high BS tolerance who could play the corporate games well enough to make a halfway decent living at it and were willing to make the necessary trade-offs. As Corporate Team Player Man, he could support his wife and family in the customary manner, and still be happy enough. He used to make his own beer -- and was very good at it, too, as I recall. He also gave me a recipe for Kahlua. He was a fun person to be around and he did a lot to make my later years at TI bearable.

I started working at TI in 1980. The previous year, my marriage had crashed and burned shortly after takeoff, and I had moved back home from WVA. Literally, back home. Back to my old bedroom in my parents' house. That lasted all of two months. It was nothing personal. I was just too used to living unencumbered and unsupervised to go back to living with the pair of parental elephants in the living room. Thomas Wolfe nailed it when he said, "You can't go home again." In the eight or so years since I'd moved out for the first time, I'd gotten too used to living in my own space, on my own time, in my own way. The corners I'd always had, had gotten larger, stronger, tougher, to the point that I could no longer fold them over flat enough to squeeze into that nice little round hole in the front bedroom of my parents' house any more (It had always been a pretty tight fit, anyway). I already had a car and now that I had a job, I moved back out again that February (fourth time was charmed) into an apartment off the south loop. That next December was when I acquired Phred, my pet tree. The following March I moved to the apartment on 21st street because it had two bedrooms instead of one,was half a city closer to TI, and there were no upstairs neighbors. And it was while I was living there that I acquired The Recipe. Over the years, I've modified it, renamed it, made it my own.

So, here it is: The Recipe

Yield: Approximately 5 to 6 fifths.

Ingredients:
6 cups water
4 cups brown sugar
16 oz pure vanilla extract (not imitation!)
16 oz pure almond extract (not imitation!)
stick cinnamon
whole cloves
whole allspice
nutmeg (if you are willing, buy whole and grate it yourself; if not buy ground)
1 fifth peach brandy
1 fifth apricot brandy
1/2 gallon vodka.

Preparation: (the way I make it)
In a large pot that will hold 5 quarts of liquid, mix water and sugar and put on the stove on medium heat. Use a rolling pin to crunch the three sticks of cinnamon into small pieces. Add cinnamon, 1 tbsp of whole cloves, 1/2 tbsp of allspice and 2 tsp of nutmeg. Bring to a rolling boil and reduce heat slightly to a low boil, stirring frequently, for approximately 30-45 minutes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature. Add the extracts and the booze. Stir well. Pour into bottles by dipping out with a measuring cup and pouring through a funnel.

Notes:
1. Use the cheapest booze you can get, especially the vodka, but don't skimp on the other ingredients, especially the extracts and spices.
2. I like the spices loose and I like to leave them in when I bottle it. That way, the flavor continues to "mature" the longer you keep it. The spice bits settle to the bottom eventually and if you pour carefully, they won't go into the glass. If you're picky, you can strain them out by pouring the liquid through a fine strainer or a cotton cup towel (the kind you dry glasses and crystal with).
3. There's enough alcohol in this stuff that, if properly bottled, it will keep for years, literally. The longest I've ever kept any is 6 years. Personally, I think it improves with age.
4. Play around with the recipe. If it's too sweet for you, use less sugar. Use 24 oz of almond extract and 8 oz of vanilla, or don't use any vanilla at all. Experiment. Try different combinations of fruit brandies (plum and apricot, peach and cherry, etc) or use three brandies and a fifth of vodka or four brandies and no vodka. Use more or less spices and vary the proportions. Try adding some Grand Marnier or Cointreau. You're making it; make it how you like it.
5. No matter how carefully you follow the recipe, every batch will be different. Deal with it.


Warning:
This stuff is "hard liquor," right up there with vodka, slivovitz and schnapps, and it will eat your sack lunch if you're not careful. So go easy with it. It's sweet enough to give you one hell of a hangover. If this is too "alcoholic" for you, leave out the vodka, not the brandies. The brandies add flavor. All the vodka adds is kick.

Bottles:
Save up your empty liquor bottles, wash off the labels and "recycle" them. Wine bottles won't work unless you have one of those little corking machines and can put a new cork in. Those with screw on lids will work well enough, but my preference is Harvey's Bristol Cream and cream sherry bottles. Their bottles have a lid with a cork on it, and I like Harvey's Bristol Cream. That's what I bottle my "private stock" in. If you plan to give some as gifts, recycled fancy liqueur bottles are nice. You can use a desktop publishing program to design your own labels. I would advise printing the labels on regular paper, not sticky labels, and affix the labels to the bottles with clear plastic packing tape. Covering the label with the tape keeps the ink from bleeding. This is the voice of experience speaking. The people I give this stuff to as gifts always seem to be returning the empties for refills, and doing the labels this way makes them a lot easier to remove so you can properly clean the bottles in hot soapy water (rinse well!) in preparation for the next batch.