Bon Voyage Fun. See You for X-Mas!

In what has become an annual tradition for me, the last full weekend of October is affectionately unfortunately known as Brian's Farewell to Fun.  This bittersweet weekend occurs because the nightmare of law school kicks into high gear after this point.  This year, the farewell came a week early due to several deadlines looming on the horizon.  Next week I have to have half of my cite-checking assignment for law review done, start researching and writing my evidence midterm, continue research for my article, and have a meeting with one of my editors to go over my first portion.  After next week, I have to write 20 more pages, incorporate edits to the first portion, and finish cite checking.  Immediately after I turn all of that stuff in, I have to start outlining for my classes so I don't fail my finals.  Is it too late to run away and join the circus or wander aimlessly around Napa Valley? 

With this impending monsoon of work, this weekend was sorely needed.  I had a few people over to my apartment on Saturday, and I wanted to make a drink that tasted like the fall.  The Lake Geneva adventure from last week (read about it a few posts below) left me with more apples than I know what to do with, so using the apples was an obvious answer (unless I wanted 10 lbs of rotting apples).  I looked around the internet for a recipe, but I didn't find much that sounded good.  I was talking about my drink-related plight with my friend/ex-coworker, Cristian.  Fortuitously, he had an excellent sounding (and absurdly strong) drink recipe.  It seems like a variation of an Apple Pie shot that I have had before, but I did not know how to make it before Cris enlightened me.  If you need a good fall party drink or need to scrape paint off of a barn, this is the recipe for you.  My initial attempt at the drink could have killed a man, so I had to do some adjusting.  Sorry no pictures for this one because I was in a hurry to get it done.

Recipe
1 quart apple juice
2 quarts apple cider
2 large or 3 small cinnamon sticks
additional ground cinnamon (if needed)
2 apples, cored and wedged
1 bottle of everclear

1.  Put apple juice and cinnamon sticks in a small sauce pan and bring to a boil.
2.  Pour hot apple juice and cinnamon sticks into a crockpot, but do not turn it on yet (or you can use a stock pot).
3.  Add apple cider to crockpot.
4.  Add apple slices.
5.  When the juice has cooled slightly, add bottle of everclear to juice.  Turn on crockpot to lowest setting or put stock pot on stove and set to lowest heat.
6.  Taste the drink and adjust until it tastes properly (like liquid apple pie) by adding more cider or cinnamon.
7.  This is very very strong (as you may have guessed), but you can't tell it has so much alcohol in it, so be responsible (I can't believe I just said that).

Note:  This should be served warm, not hot.  Alcohol boils around 170 degrees.  If you are not watchful of the crockpot (or stock pot) you may accidentally boil off the alcohol.