Grasshopper Pie x 2

Summer – it just screams pie, right? The call is too loud to disregard, clean eating efforts be damned. My excuse is, when I make a pie and take it somewhere, at least it won’t be in the house so that I am tempted to eat the whole thing. Plus, the purchasing of bizarre, mystery liqueurs to make a dessert is half the fun! Take it to a party and make other people eat it! Yeah, that’s the ticket…

There are many versions of Grasshopper Pie (including one made with ice cream which I did not try), but I naturally gravitated first to one made with Jell-O, my eternal love – that most versatile of sugary powders. I will share it with you, but I warn you – it’s not the best. It is entirely too sweet, and It has to be mixed with Cool Whip, for heaven’s sake. Yuck! Why did I think *that* would taste good? Cool Whip – something I had only heard about until I began recreating vintage recipes for this blog, something I didn’t even know where to find in the grocery store. (Tip: you find it in the freezer section. And it’s strangely weightless. And tastes of chemicals.) Still, this is the first version of the pie that I made, so here is the recipe, from 1988’s “Jell-O: Fun and Fabulous Recipes”. Yeah, some are more fabulous than others…

Looked great, but too sweet. Plus, shame on me for not making my own pie crust!

Next, I turned to a more trustworthy source, my Betty Crocker Cookbook from 1969. Thank you Betty for relying on the old stand-by, melted marshmallows, to create the filling in the pie! And remarkably, other than the marshmallows, Oreos and food coloring, this version of grasshopper pie is made with actual real ingredients – things I know! That are not highly processed! I had a good feeling about this.

First: the crushing of the Oreo cookies to make the crust. Yes, you could use chocolate wafers but I was making this pie for a party at my Dad’s, and the local store didn’t have the right kind. So, crush up Oreos (Fun! Place them in a plastic bag and go to town with a meat tenderizer! BANG!), then mix with ¼ cup melted butter, form in the pie dish and bake for 20 min, then chill.

The only thing tricky about this pie is that there are several steps and each one requires

chilling before and/or after. It doesn’t take long to put together, but the overall time will be a few hours  because of chill time. So plan to, you know, chill, between steps.

I succumbed to lure of green food coloring, essentially because it is an amusing novelty to prepare food that is green, but honestly you don’t need it – the crème de menthe provides a green tint. And speaking of food that is green, after these two pies, my next experiment was with another green pie, featuring a secret ingredient that provided the color and consistency: avocado! However, that is a story for another time. Spoiler: it is NOT something I will be making again. I’m kind of thinking of going back to fruit pies…

"The Best"? DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE. This is a lie. Sorry...

Allspice (Pimento) Dram

I recently made some friends from Jamaica, and in addition to loving their music, I learned that we also share a love of healthy food including fish, fresh fruit and lots of spice.  They sang beautiful music to me, and I was happy to be able to give them things they appreciated in return: local San Francisco honey and Meyer lemons grown in Berkeley by my mother. Since then I’ve been looking at this adorable booklet of Jamaican recipes from 1963 (Leila Brandon’s Merry Go Round of Recipes from Jamaica) and wanting to make something, but much of the ingredients are extremely unfamiliar. A recipe for Pimento Dram caught my eye, which I know as an ingredient in many classic Tiki Drinks, and which I also know to be an expensive liqueur to purchase. Even the tiny vintage airplane bottle that I have once cost $8.70 (according to the

price tag still on it from the shop called “All Things Jamaican”) so I figured this project could save me some money. 

Rather than buying St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram for $25, which is indeed excellent but pricy (and in a tall bottle that annoyingly won’t fit in my cabinet) I decided to make my own. The procedure seemed simple enough, though Ms. Brandon’s recipe called for fresh allspice berries (which I couldn’t find) and lots of fresh lime juice (which might not be stable at room temp over time) so I went to the trusty Interweb to look for a different recipe, and was happily able to find a similar one, which I provide for you here. If you love the flavor of pumpkin pie spice (which comes mainly from allspice berries, also known as pimento), you’ll adore this liqueur. It takes a couple of weeks to make, but is well worth it.

In addition to traditional Tiki drinks, allspice dram is called for in many cocktails such as the delicious 1937 Lion’s Tail (see below) and also tastes yummy over vanilla ice cream or as a flavoring for a delicious flan. Brew some up today and thank me in a fortnight. 

Allspice Dram: 

1 cup light rum

¼ cup whole allspice berries

1 cinnamon stick

1 ½ cups water

2/3 cup brown sugar

1. Crush the allspice berries in a mortar and pestle or grind them in a spice grinder. You want coarse, large pieces and not a fine grind.

2. Place the crushed allspice in a sealable glass jar and pour the rum on top. Seal the jar and shake well. Let this mixture steep for 4 days, shaking daily. On day 5, break up the cinnamon stick and add it to the mixture. 

3. After 12 days total steeping, strain out the solids through a fine mesh strainer. Then strain again through a coffee filter into your final bottle or jar.

4. Heat water and sugar on medium until boiling, stirring to dissolve, about 5 minutes. Let the syrup cool, then add it to the strained allspice infusion. Shake and then let rest for a minimum of two days before using. (Yield: about 3 cups)

Lion’s Tail (1937)

2oz Bourbon

½ oz Allspice Dram

½ oz Line Juice

1 tsp. Simple Syrup

1 dash Angostura Bitters

Shake over ice, strain; serve straight up in chilled cocktail glass.