The Peeps Cocktail You Didn't Know You Needed
Just in time for Easter (or Spring), Friend Shana, my main squeeze for cocktail f*ckery, invents the "The Jungle Peep" -- a version of the tiki staple Jungle Bird using Peeps!
Happy Friday, y’all. We made it to Cocktail Hour!
It promises to be in the 50s and sunny this weekend, so Lovey and I are planning to spend some time prepping garden beds (I like to pretend I like to garden) and day drinking.
So in honor of Spring appearing (for those of you who celebrate) or Easter (also for those of you who celebrate), I have a special drink just begging to be mixed up at your weekend festivities.
And by “I” … I mean Friend Shana. Because when there’s cocktail fuckery afoot, I call her. Our text threads are filled with me saying “I want to try X” and her coming back with … “on it. will report back.” Invariably it’s delicious or, at least, a good story.
So here you go, Friend Shana with her invention: The Jungle Peep!
Last spring, I got an urgent text from Amy: Do you have Peeps? I NEED PEEPS!!!
Of course I had Peeps. I always have Peeps. And Cadbury Eggs. (Because Easter candy is available for a limited time each season, it’s best to hoard should a September candy emergency arise.)
Amy was hoping to include a Peep cocktail in last year’s Easter Cocktail Hour of Bar/Heart, so The Consort and I got to work. We ended up with an Old Fashioned made with Peeps simple syrup. It was…fine. We vowed that this year we would do better.
I had a great idea: something tiki/tropical. The vanilla flavor of the Peeps would fit well with rum and also be similar to Velvet Falernum, a common ingredient in tiki drinks. So, a few weeks ago, I busted out a tray of Peeps and the food scale and did math to solve our simple syrup issue. I was pretty sure I had it, until the syrup cooled. The syrup had completely re-congealed. I didn’t make novelty simple syrup;. I ruined Peeps and made shitty Jell-O. Not my finest moment.
I thought hope was lost until my neighbor Kristen popped over to hang out. She’d also been working on a Peeps project: Peep infused vodka! (Do you doubt that the neighbors on my block would both, independently be working on Peeps projects? Then you should read Amy’s piece on Plaguesgiving, our block’s High Holy Holiday.)
Kristen handed over a bottle of Miss Piggy-lavender vodka that smelled like vodka but had a distinct marshmallow flavor. Our Peep cocktail dreams were about to become reality.
Now that we were dealing with actual Peep booze vs Peep simple syrup, it was an easy pivot to a Jungle Bird, that classic tiki cocktail featuring rum, pineapple and lime juices, Campari and simple syrup. All we’d need to do is swap out the rum with the Peep vodka.
Verdict: It was delicious; bitter and bright. Somehow the Peep pushed its way through the other ingredients without being cloying. But because I like options – and have the weird pile of liquor bottles to prove it – I also tried replacing the Campari with Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur. It’s also delicious; spicy and bright and Peep-y!
Once I knew I had a winner, I did the most Midwestern thing I could think of: I made two of each option, poured them into mason jars and left them on the neighbors’ porches.
Kristen’s review: They're both delightful! I like the heat level on the Ancho version, and the Campari is the perfect amount of bitter. Well done 🎉
Note from Amy: Imagine how much better your family festivities, whatever you celebrate, would be with a few of The Jungle Peep 😝
The Jungle Peep
1 oz Peep vodka
1 oz Ancho Reyes or Campari
1 ½ oz pineapple juice
½ oz lime juice
½ oz simple syrup
Instructions: Pour ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake, shake, shake until chilled (~20 seconds). Strain into a rocks glass filled with ice. Garnish with a pineapple wedge. Serve.
Peep Vodka Instructions: Chop up five peeps and add them to a standard bottle of vodka. It takes about 90 minutes for the Peeps to dissolve. Strain your bottle to remove any leftover marshmallow fluff and the Peep eyes, which don’t dissolve. Yikes!
WHAT I’M READING: Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Did I start Curtis Sittenfeld’s Romantic Comedy one night with a Manhattan and finish it the next with the same? Yes, yes I did. It was a joy. Two of her previous novels, Rodham and American Wife (reimagining of Hillary and Laura Bush’s stories, respectively), are two of my favorites. And while Romantic Comedy isn’t as ambitious as those, it is smart, witty and sexy. Plus, all the Midwest references. Definitely buy this now — or get it on your Library hold — for summer reading.
THIS WEEK’S FEELS: Why Can’t Detroit Have Nice Things?
On the left is the new residential tower being built in Denver by Mad Architects. It is 16 stories with a descending nature trail on its facade. Plus water features and trails. On. The. Building.
On the right is the new commercial and residential project being built in Detroit by SHoP Architects on the former – and famed – Hudson’s Department Store site downtown. We get a tower next to a box. And “indoor outdoor space for activations.” Yay us.
3 THINGS I’M READING ON THE INTERWEBZ
“100 Years of Artist Signatures in a Detroit Club” by Sarah Rose Sharp in Hyperallergic
The ceiling’s crossbeams are decorated in an array of styles, especially the Art Deco and Egyptology motifs that were popular in the 1920s. But these are a secondary attraction to the beams adorned with hundreds of signatures, including those of Diego Rivera, Marcel Duchamp, Leroy Foster, Margaret Bourke-White, and the most recent, Detroit artist Cledie Taylor.
“We’ve always had music, we’ve always had literary events,” said Wilkinson. “That’s part of the Scarab Club DNA. It’s not as visual artists, but it’s all the artists. Bill Porter signed the beam. He was a major designer for GM, and he’s retired now, but he’s a super big deal in the Detroit automotive world.”
“The Christian Liberal-Arts School at the Heart of the Culture Wars” by Emma Green in the New Yorker
Hillsdale College, a school in southern Michigan with roughly sixteen hundred students, was founded by abolitionist, Free Will Baptist preachers in 1844. Today, the college is known as a home for smart young conservatives who wish to engage seriously with the liberal arts. The Hillsdale education has several hallmarks: a devotion to the Western canon, an emphasis on primary sources over academic theory, and a focus on equipping students to be able, virtuous citizens. There is no department of women’s and gender studies, no concentrations on race and ethnicity. It’s a model of education that some scholars consider dangerously incomplete. It’s also a model that communities across the country are looking to adopt.
“Pizza rolls just might be the closest thing that exists to an edible decoder ring for midcentury American cuisine.” And they were born in the Midwest.
MUST HAVE: Wool Dryer Balls
A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to buy a new quilt for our bed. But when one has a dog and two cats who sleep on the bed, one is not destined to have nice things. (Technically, the #bougiebull, would like me to tell you, he sleeps under the covers not merely on the bed.
But still, I ordered a midnight blue linen quilt with a diamond pattern thinking it was attractive while still being utilitarian. Do you know what shows up on a midnight blue quilt? Every speck of dog hair and cat dander. It’s impossible to not see that you, in fact, sleep with Pig Pen.
And so here, my friends, is the moral of the story: If you are living with pets in your bed, you must have wool dryer balls. I recently ordered a set, convinced by the algorithms of Instagram that they would change my life. I stuffed my quilt and six large wool balls, plus a hope and a prayer, inside the dryer and set it to air fluff.
What came out was nothing short of a miracle. All that hair and dander was blessedly beaten off. And when I wash the blanket, the dryer balls cut the drying time in half. Sadly, they do nothing for the drool.
(I bought Woolzies, but I can't say whether one brand is superior to another.)
YOUR WEEKLY CUTE CRITTER: Reading Companions
See the #bougiebull and The Overlord as they keep me company reading Romantic Comedy on said blue blanket. Ignore the animal hair. I haven’t had a chance to fluff the blanket yet this week 😜
That’s it for this week, y’all. See you Tuesday.
P.S. If you enjoyed this, I love to know. Feel free to leave a comment below. And share this with a friend!
Good job, Amy!
You coulda asked me about the wool dryer balls!! They are amazing and did I never make you any?!! Yikes! Super big mom fail. 😞