Home Speakeasy

The folks over at OXO were kind enough to send us a couple digital food scales with pull-out displays so we could try one out and give the other away, so we decided to use it to make some mango liqueur. We may have gotten a little carried away when Whole Foods had a sale on Champagne mangos, so there were a ton of them here that we wanted to use before they turned. After what seemed like a lifetime of cutting fruit into chunks, we pulled out the scale and started measuring mango to split up between experiments.

No big surprise here, the scale worked great. At this point about half of our barware is OXO and we’ve never been anything but happy with the quality. The scale has an easy-to-read digital display and a pull-out screen in the event you’ve got something large that would otherwise block your view of the screen. For a full list of the features, check it out on OXO’s website. Long story short, the scale worked great, and we’d like to give one away to one of you! We’re going to do this one just like our Home Bar giveaway, so here are the rules:

To enter to win, comment on this post and tell us how you’d use your new OXO Digital Food Scale.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be drinking-related. We enjoy the occasional home-cooked meal too! If you want a better chance to win, you can do the following for additional entries (please leave a separate comment for each one we can get an accurate count!):

1. “Like” us on Facebook
2. Share this contest with your friends on Facebook
3. Follow us on Twitter
4. Tweet the following: “I entered to win an @OXO digital food scale on @HomeSpeakeasy at http://bit.ly/I93eL3 “
5. Follow us on Pinterest and re-pin something of ours
6. Follow our Guide to Drinking in Philly on Foursquare

Remember to leave a separate comment for each thing you do so you’ll get credit!

Friday (April 27th) at 5pm, we’ll pick a winner with a random number generator. If the winner doesn’t respond via email within 24 hours (or if they turn out to be some kind of bot), we’ll pick another the following day. US residents only, please.

Thanks for reading, and good luck! More on the actual liqueur after the break!

As for the liqueur experiments, everyone out there seemed to have their own opinions on how to make your own liqueur. We tried two different methods and four different base liquors, and in about a month we’ll move on to the next step and see how they’re progressing:

Mango Liqueur #1
2 cups diced mango
2 cups water
1 cup sugar
3 cups VSOP brandy
1 cinnamon stick
1 half nutmeg seed
Bring diced mango and water to a boil in a medium-sized pot.  Add sugar and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Using an immersion blender, puree everything until smooth in texture. Strain several ties to remove as much solid as possible and add to bottle or jar. Add brandy, cinnamon and nutmeg, shake well and seal. Allow to sit for 1 month, shaking occasionally. 

Mango Liqueur #2
1 lb diced mango
3 cups Leblon Cachaça
Combine in bottle or jar, seal and allow to sit for 1 month, shaking occasionally. 

Mango Liqueur #3
1 lb diced mango
3 cups vodka
Combine in bottle or jar, seal and allow to sit for 1 month, shaking occasionally. 

Mango Liqueur #4
0.5 lbs diced mango
1.5 cups Mount Gay Eclipse gold rum
Combine in bottle or jar, seal and allow to sit for 1 month, shaking occasionally.