The Waffle!
- Alex
I will admit that there are times when the complete randomness of my brain gets me in trouble. To wit: I'm sitting in a bar at Purdue University, probably
three or four years ago now. It's a very well-stocked bar, and at some point in the night I see one of the bartenders pull from the wall a bottle that looks to me
to be the general shape of a bottle of Mrs. Butterworth. Naturally I turn to my friend Lisa and say, What the heck was that? Is there a drink called
The Waffle or something?
Naturally, this little vignette gets repeated at various parties since then, and a sort of Waffle Myth builds, as evidenced by Wade's Monday
Gambit. Finally after all these years inspired by that, Becca and I set out that night to actually
mix a waffle.
Since I told Wade that vodka + baileys + syrup = waffle, that's what we started with. The first hiccup in the process was that the syrup flat refused to mingle
with those nasty alcohol types, instead sinking straight to the bottom. I'd talked to one of my co-workers earlier in the day, who also happens to have been a
bartender in a past life, and he suggested a bit of lime juice to curdle the Bailey's, so I decided to add that in for kicks, since I was ready to write
off the results as a failure at that point.
Whaddya know but the lime juice was the catalyst to mix everything! We ended up with a lumpy, light brown drink that did in fact look quite a lot like
waffle batter. It tasted a little too limey, though, and I'm still trying not to think of what the texture made it feel like I was drinking.
However, it was enough of a success that we decided to try again, this time actually paying attention to proportions, since apparently that leads to better
taste (don't ask Wade about this, though, he doesn't understand). So we went for take two. As we were finishing up the batch, Mr. Orange Kitten came to
investigate. We should have noticed that he was immediately suspicious of the whole undertaking.
Unfortunately we ended up with the same results as before. Not quite as much lime taste, so it was almost passable. But the texture. Oh the disgusting
texture. It was just not quite drinkable. Close, but no cigar.
Not ones to give up easily, we took a day to think about it, and we looked up drinks that were similar. And inspiration hit. So last night I sat back down
with my waffle batter. The plan: 1 oz of vodka. 1 and 1/2 oz of Bailey's. 1 oz of Maple Syrup. And the secret ingredient. I thought about holding it out as
a mystery, a la the Flaming Homer, but I think I'd rather just include it. It's Coke. Coke always solves everything. I'm calling it a dash of Coke, as it's a
little bit more than a splash, and I'm guessing you could add more to taste or color. The other key? We used a shaker. Which makes The Waffle the James Bond of
breakfast drinks - it must be shaken, not stirred.
The result was a definite success. Not only did it taste good, it looked good, and it only had the smallest fraction of texture. We let it sit for a while
to see if the syrup would settle, and when it didn't, we drank it down. That's right, not only did we create a waffle, it was good enough to drink the whole thing.
It's not gonna be for you if you don't like irish cream drinks, but if you do. . .
Well then next time you visit, I can in fact make you a Waffle. Being an idiot works out for me sometimes.
What do you think? Drop us a line at webmaster@simpleprop.com and give us some
feedback. Maybe we'll even run your letters in future Gambits. 'The Daily Gambit' is updated every weekday.
