Brandy Slush

I was sick yesterday. For the second time in just over two weeks. I'm pretty sure I'm sick of being sick. I feel a thousand times better today, even though I had sweating episodes throughout the day. At least I didn't feel like I was going to fall asleep every time I opened my eyes, or that someone had ripped all the muscles out of my back, neck and head, twisted them, scrubbed them on a washboard, then put them back. That was yesterday. Today I was cheerfully taking Eryn out to look for a skull geocache in the woods. By the time we got home, Pooteewheet was sick with whatever I had. I wish her a pleasant night of sweating, groaning, and drooling on the covers - and not in the usual way.

And I'm making Brandy Slush mix. I've messed around with the recipe quite a bit, although mostly on the tea side, not the alcohol side. But I've noticed that 2 cups of brandy tends to make what comes out of the ice cream bucket more solid than slushy, so that's no good. This time I went with 2.5 cups. I figure I can just keep increasing it until I get the appropriate slushy consistency. And you can use a pretty cheap brandy, that just adds to the taste.

Ginger tea is good, as opposed to just green tea. And I've been mixing a bit of ginger tea, lemon tea and green tea, and I suspect that will work best. And six bags instead of four to bring out the flavor. I have an urge to try lemongrass and ginger using fresh ingredients. I think that's my next experiment.

• 7 cups water - boil with 2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups of boiled water with 4-6 teabags (green tea, lemon tea, ginger tea - as you wish, Buttercup)
• 2-3 cups unflavored brandy OR 2-3 cups whiskey OR 2-3 cups apricot brandy Or 2-3 cups rum (flavored or otherwise) OR 1-1.5 cups brandy and 1-1.5 cups vodka.
• 1 - 12oz. can frozen orange juice concentrate (don't add extra water)
• 1 - 12oz. can frozen lemonade concentrate (don't add extra water). Some recipes call for 1/2 this much, but that seems wasteful unless you're drinking a lot of slush (2 gallons) or making some lemonade at the same time.
• Sprite or Mountain Dew or anything 7-upyish.

Add 2 cups of white sugar to the 7 cups of water and bring to a boil. Set aside and let cool (room temperature, or at least sort of luke warm). Put the teabags in the other 2 cups of boiling water. Let them cool as well. In an ice cream bucket - one of those gallon ones you can get full of mint chip or neopolitan at the store (I favor the former) - mix the 7 cups of cooled sugar water, the 2 cups of cooled tea (sans tea bags), the 2-3 cups of alcohol of choice, the 12 oz. of orange juice concentrate, and the 12 oz. of lemonade concentrate. Mix thoroughly (no chunks of lemonade or orange juice clumping up) and put in a freezer in a place where you won't tip it over. Don't tip it over. Just don't. A gallon of sugar water poured into your freezer is going to mess up your day. Give it 24 hours or so until thoroughly frozen, or appropriately slushy (depending on the alcohol content). Scoop some of it out into a cup. Add 7up/Sprite/Diet Sprite/Mountain Dew/Bargain Basement lemon lime soda. Your precise ratio may depend on your peference for slush or lemon lime soda. Give it a stir so everything mixes nicely.

I've found that if your mixture freezes a bit too solidly, warm soda can work best.