Beverages Homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream, Mike Morris

HOMEMADE BAILEY’S IRISH CREAM

When one of my wife’s colleagues gifted us this recipe, as fans of Bailey’s Irish Cream we couldn’t not try it. I’ve left the recipe as we received it, below, but over time some experiments seemed to improve it a tad. It’s been a while since we’ve made it, but as I recall we increased the amount of whiskey by a quarter cup or so. In our house, we undoubtedly increased the amount of chocolate syrup a bit, and as a recipe tinkerer I sometimes added a half teaspoon of almond extract, but none of that is necessary.

One of the great things about making Homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream is that you can opt for organic ingredients if you’d like. Can’t hurt. The one item I suspect some people may quibble with is the direction to use Canadian whiskey. I’m not a whiskey or whisky aficionado, my body recognizing it as poisonous ever since a youthful run-in with a fifth of Seagrams on a school band trip, but a brief look into the differences between Irish and Scottish whisky and American and Canadian whiskey leads one to the conclusion that Canadian may be the best choice after all. Your call.

Ingredients:

• 1 pint half-n-half • 14 oz. sweetened condensed milk (standard can size) • 1 cup whiskey (Canadian) • ½ teaspoon coconut extract • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract • 1 tablespoon Hershey’s chocolate syrup

Instructions:

1. Blend and refrigerate. 2. Makes a little over a quart Bell jar’s worth — the chef gets the extra. 3. Since it’s sooo much work, we usually doubled the recipe as well. It’ll keep.