Recipe: Big Dog Kahlua

In the last few weeks I have posted my recipe for Homemade Amaretto and Homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream.  Just to round it out I figured I better also put up my recipe for Homemade Kahlua.

This recipe came from our good friend from Army days-Randy.  He would have all our friends save their dark glass bottles from beer and wine and then make big batches of this to give to friends.

This would make a great frugal  gift for the holidays.  You could keep a couple of small bottles on hand for hostess gifts or last minute presents.   I think they are especially attractive if you dip the head in melted wax. . . very classy.

Big Dog Kahlua

2 C Sugar

2 C Water

3 TBS Instant Coffee (pick something that tastes decent!)

1 Vanilla Bean or 1 TBS Vanilla Extract (preferably real)

2 C Vodka

-Mix water, sugar and instant coffee.

-Simmer until sugar is dissolved.

-Cool completely.

-Stir in in Vanilla and Vodka and pour into a dark bottle to age.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pmitchell/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Finger Lakes Winery Tours

So the family and I had a great time, despite the cold, camping this weekend.

I did a Whrrl story about our first day touring the wineries-so go take a look, you’ll feel as if you were there with us!

I’m not going to kid you-we spent several hundred dollars on wine, and got almost 5 full cases. In case you were wondering, we aren’t heavy drinkers or anything-the last time we bought that much it lasted a couple of years.

We did do several things that were frugal on this trip:

#1-We camped with our camper trailer at a State Park. This was much less expensive than a hotel.

#2-Because we were camping, we cooked our own food. We did not buy a single meal out for the entire 4 day weekend. Not only that, but we brought snacks with us to keep the kiddos occupied. Having looked at the tourist aimed prices at the wineries that did have eating establishments, well, we saved a ton.

#3-Because we were camping we could bring our puppy with us and not have to board her somewhere. Again-big savings.

To really have made this a much less expensive vacation we could have simply done the tastings and not bought the wine. At each winery the tastings ran anywhere from $1 to $3 and you typically sampled between 5 and 8 different wines.

Yankee Bill and I bought wine, but we didn’t crack a single bottle-it all stayed corked to be brought home. So technically we would have had the same fun if we had tasted and not bought at all! It was the act of tasting, comparing notes, thinking about what characteristics we enjoyed in each wine. . . even seeing the various locations and admiring all the labels. Those were what made the vacation.

If money had been tight we could simply have written down the names of the wines we had enjoyed and then bought them, a bottle at a time, at our local wine stores as we wanted them.

Have any of you ever been wine tasting? Do you have any frugal tips?

Homemade Iced Coffee

Here is a quick and easy money saving idea for you. Want to enjoy an iced coffee but hate paying those coffee shop prices? Well never fear! Frugal Upstate is here to help.

Iced coffee is incredibly easy to make at home-it really is just ice & your coffee.

Seriously.

In the summer I frequently make a pot of coffee larger than what I expect to drink in the morning.  In the afternoon I take one of my tall drinking glasses, fill it with ice, toss in my splenda and half & half, then pour the coffee on top. Stir with a chopstick-Viola!

I do find that I like much more milk or half & half in my iced coffee than I take in my regular coffee. Not really sure why that is. Experiment with yours to see.

Now if you want to try a different method, why not try the Cold Brewed Iced Coffee recipe over at The Bitten Word.  I’ve never made it that way myself-in fact I only found the recipe while searching on Flickr for an appropriate iced coffee picture (that’s hers above-love folks who do creative commons copyright on their photos). I will be trying it this weekend though!

Want to try making something more like those frappachino drinks? You could always adapt this awesome recipe from Mom Advice on how to make a Starbucks frozen peppermint mocha.

Photo by The Bitten Word