Here are a couple of recipe links to start off your Tuesday.

St. Louis Today had a recipe for Czechvar beer apple beignets.  Since Czechvar isn’t commonly available in all parts of the US, I did a little Wikipedia searching and discovered that it’s a Czech lager and that Budweiser would probably be acceptable as a substitute ingredient.

Meanwhile, the New York Press recently ran a recipe for scalloped sweet potatoes with maple bourbon marshmallows.  Mmmm.  I didn’t think it was possible to improve upon the marshmallow, but this article proved me wrong.

Find many more ways to cook with booze in our bookstore.

Just in time for Thanksgiving, it’s time for a weekly roundup of booze-related recipes.

• Pumpkin bourbon cheesecake with spiced graham pecan crust
• Peach bourbon BBQ shrimp and bacon wrapped scallops
• Chocolate chip bourbon pecan pie
• Bourbon-butternut squash soup
• Blackberry wine cake

Enjoy!  Don’t forget to browse the Mid-South Alcoholic Supply bookstore for books containing lots more recipes.

The Toronto Globe and Mail recently interviewed Ryan Jennings and David Steele, author of two cookbooks, Cooking with Booze and the newly-released Entertaining with Booze.  “There are flavors in alcohol that you can’t find in your spice rack,” comments Jennings, giving the example of Jagermeister, which is distilled with about 50 different herbs and botanicals.  In the books there is a recipe for Alsatian Choucroute Garnie, a soup with sauerkraut, smoked sausage, bacon, and parsnip.  Other recipes include mojito lamb popsicles, and a cucumber sandwich in which the cucumbers are marinated in gin.  There’s also tequila strawberry shortcake, baby back ribs marinated in Jack Daniels, lamb tagine enhanced with port, and pumpkin and coconut mousse flavored with candied ginger and coconut rum.

These are two of the many fine books you can find in the bookstore at Mid-South Alcoholic Supply.

Quick post today, but it’s a good one:  Here’s a recipe from our friends down under for a drink made with vodka, brown sugar, crushed lime, and mint.  This cocktail “will get your dinner party off to a flying start,” according to the creator of the recipe.

If you need tools to crush the ingredients, don’t forget that Mid-South Alcoholic Supply sells bar sets.

Got a couple of recipes to point you toward today… this Hartford Courant article notes that booze is a good way to add distinctive mellow flavor to beef stew.  Wine and scotch are mentioned as common ingredients to add some oomph to stew, but the writer says that beer has its place in stew as well.  He goes on to give a recipe for beer and beef stew with Parmesan toasts.

Meanwhile, our friend Mr. Food is back with another booze-related recipe.  If you ever get to catch the noontime news, there’s a good chance you’ve seen Mr. Food cooking up something tasty in the kitchen as he remarks, “Ooh it’s so good!”  It’s especially good when there’s booze in the recipe, as was the case in his recent dish Fettucine alla Vodka.

Finally, here are some more tips for pairing wine with food.  These tips come from Vanessa Varriale-Oien, owner of Vintner’s Cellar Winery.  The 5-second summary:  “Drink what you like,” and “the body of the wine should match the body of the food.”

Find more tips for pairing wine with food in our booze bookstore.  Plenty of books on a variety of booze-related topics, and they all make great Christmas gifts.

Gotta do a quick post today, because I’m heading to an alumni luncheon at the local university.  Unfortunately, since the university has a no-alcohol policy, that means there probably won’t be any booze served with lunch.

In the meantime, though, I’ll leave you with a couple of good booze-based recipes.  Here’s one for mussels in India Pale Ale sauce.  Never thought of that before, but I guess the hoppiness of the IPA would help bring out the mussels’ flavor.  You’ll have to scroll through the writer’s opinions in beer (which are actually pretty interesting) to get to the recipe.  There’s also a recipe for pan-roasted chicken, but no booze is involved (other than a suggestion to drink a beer while you cook), so who cares.

For dessert, here’s a recipe for bourbon-pecan sweet potato pie.  Note that this one takes a day’s preparation:  You have to soak the pecans in the bourbon overnight.

You can find more booze-related recipes in Mid-South Alcoholic Supply’s bookstore.

Wilmington, NC’s Star-News Online has a good article about beer cocktails and beer floats.  At the bottom of the article they list several recipes for beer-based mixed drinks.  There you can learn how to make the Front Street Flaming Float, a beer ice-cream float that you light on fire; the White Bear, a cocktail made with Pilsner Urquell and Tuaca; the Green Devil, a beer/absinthe cocktail; the Beer Buster, with beer, vodka, and Tabasco; and beer margaritas.

The article also interviews bartenders and brewmasters on the right way to mix beer and liquor, and it discusses classic beer mixed beverages such as the Black and Tan, Chelada, Tomboy, and Black Velvet.

Don’t forget to pick up some of our highball glasses for your beer-based cocktails, and our beer mugs for beer ice cream floats.

Here’s a recipe for tomato lifesaver pasta, an inexpensive dish students can cook to get them through tight financial times.  The recipe lists vodka as an optional agreement.  Optional???  What is wrong with these people?  Vodka is a required ingredient!  Not only that, but I’d say a shot or two of vodka is required with the meal itself.  Not to mention a nice glass of wine (box wine, if you’re on a tight budget).

TheStreet.com has a good article on how to make beer-can chicken, a cooking method that involves inserting a can of beer into the hindquarters of the bird.  The chicken’s legs and the can are then used to prop the chicken up, levitating it from the grill.  This gets the dry heat to the places the chicken needs it most.  The skin gets tight and crispy, but the meat inside stays moist and juicy.

You can get the complete recipe and cooking instructions in Beer-Can Chicken and 74 Other Offbeat Recipes for the Grill by Steven Raichlen, one of the many fine books available in our bookstore.

This SheKnows.com article is full of recipes that can be made with flavored vodkas: There’s a grown-up root beer float, and an espresso vodka with Irish cream. In addition, they share food recipes as well as drink recipes, explaining how to make Penne alla Three Olives Tomato Vodka, as well has how to make a vanilla vodka cream to serve with fresh berries.