We cut our drinking teeth on the peppermint liqueur, but it still makes a perfect holiday cocktail Peppermint schnapps makes me puke. It’s an aversion born of cliché binge-drinking during the holiday season of my freshman year in college, when my roommates and I diversified from cheap keg beer into festive hard liquor. We nominated the most mature-looking of us, whose fake driver’s license ID’ed her as a 34-year-old soccer mom, to scout out the liquor store, from whence she returned triumphant with a flask of schnapps. That evening, we smuggled our contraband past the thin blue line of campus security that stood between us and open containers and public nudity, and proceeded to the dining hall, straight to the hot chocolate dispenser. We loaded up on frothy Swiss Miss, then, giggling with mischief, click-clacked in ankle-high boots and tapered jeans to a table at the back of the room, where we spiked our mugs of lukewarm cocoa. I still don’t know if peppermint schnapps can actually make you drunk. I mean, sure I got drunk. I woke up sick, on the floor beside my bunk bed, swearing never to drink schnapps—or cocoa—again. But sometimes I worry I falsely accused a benign liqueur that embodies the sweet smell of Christmas. After all, it could have been the 12 beers I drank later that night that made me a little green. I feel like I should give schnapps a second chance. But it’s not going to be this year. These days I get my peppermint from the bottle of maximum-strength ultra Tums that I keep on my desk for second-trimester heartburn. So I asked a bunch of recent college grads at the Scene to try out a few cocktails in the name of continuing education. To start our study, we concocted a batch of homemade schnapps using the following recipe: • Mix 1/3 cup of sugar in 2 cups of corn syrup over medium heat. • When sugar is dissolved, remove from heat. • Add 2 cups of vodka. Stir and cool. • Stir in 3/4 tbsp. of peppermint extract. Once we had a base, we found hundreds of recipes for peppermint schnapps drinks, many of which are available at www.idrink.com and www.drinksmixer.com. We limited our research to recipes using Irish cream, coffee liqueur, vodka, Jägermeister, gin, crème de menthe and rum. And we bought an unexpected variety of mixers—including Dr. Pepper, chocolate milk and Listerine. When Michael Massey of Adult Beverage Consultants told us the next big thing in cocktails is going to be Robitussin and peppermint schnapps, we added a splash of pediatric cough and cold syrup for good measure. We started with the basics, comparing our homemade drink against the name-brand. Homemade was far superior—sweeter and thicker, with a delicate peppermint flavor compared to the store-bought, which was “all about the alcohol.” (It is, perhaps, worth disclosing that, though unopened, the store-bought bottle could have been 20 years old. I found it in my husband’s kitchen when we married five years ago, and he had inherited it from his parents when they moved a decade earlier. I don’t know what effect aging has on schnapps, but, regardless, I don’t think it should contaminate our study, since odds are that most people who actually try any of the following recipes at home will be using heirloom schnapps, too. The minty liqueur was apparently a big hit with an earlier generation, who sipped it neat over ice before handing the leftover bottles down to their children and grandchildren.) After taste-testing the control ingredients, we sampled the homemade schnapps with a series of individual mixers and ultimately escalated to a repertoire of complex, multi-ingredient recipes with some very creative—and often blue—names. In list form, here is what we learned: 1. Keep it simple. Our tasters preferred peppermint schnapps with single mixers, particularly vodka (this is called a Silver Bullet, Siberian Mouthwash, Peppermint Push or Green Beret when the ratio is one-part schnapps to one-part vodka. When the ratio is 1:4, it’s called a Glasnost). They also really liked the Alpine Sprite, a simple cocktail of one-part schnapps to six-parts Sprite. 2. Crème de menthe can ruin anything. Maybe it’s the color, maybe it’s the fact that we were using a three-quarters-full bottle from the ’80s, but we renounce CdM. We also renounce any cocktail that includes Listerine, even if it is the Cool Mint variety. 3. Bailey’s Irish Cream improves everything. Bailey’s is the ranch dressing of mixology. Schnapps with Bailey’s is delicious. Add vodka, it’s even better. Frankly, even Listerine improves with Bailey’s. But this should tell you something: you just like the sissy-sweet, creamy taste of Bailey’s. So why bother to pollute it? Chances are you’ll just make yourself puke next to a bunk bed. 4. Just because it sounds naughty doesn’t mean it tastes good. The Hard Icey Nipple, a medley of Jägermeister, schnapps and chocolate milk, is gross. So is the Horny Girl Scout (coffee liqueur and schnapps). If you’re going to insist on ordering schnapps with Bailey’s, please call it a Smooth Move, The Big or a Peppermint Patty Northern Style, not a Tasty Orgasm. Otherwise, you sound like a schmuck. And finally, the best piece of holiday cocktail advice we can give…. 5. Nothing mixes well with Robitussin. We don’t care how big the RoboSchnapp is supposed to get, the only things that go with cough syrup are Kleenexes and snot. Leave the Dextromethorphan in the medicine cabinet. So this holiday season, drink responsibly, i.e., pick good, clean drinks with dignified names. Mix a simple, elegant cocktail of vodka and schnapps in an icy martini glass. If you’re feeling jaunty, add a candy cane or a sprig of mint, if you must. Of course, there’s always the old stand-by: schnapps and hot chocolate. Some things—ankle-high boots and tapered jeans not among them—never go out of style.
