This week’s Epic Fail Friday topic was brought to you entirely by me.
On Wednesday night I tried to make this:
Looks good, doesn’t it? I thought the thyme sprig with speared blackberry was an especially thoughtful garnish. I already had blackberries on hand, so on my weekly grocery run I picked up a bundle of fresh thyme and a cheap bottle of triple sec and I made my own simple syrup at home. You see, this is the kind of recipe I’m drawn to trying because it looks like fun. The picture is downright pretty and the combination of the ingredients is simultaneously elegant and weird enough that I feel compelled to taste it. I’ve certainly never thought of blackberry and thyme as complimentary flavors, but throw in a little lime and some triple sec and sure, why not? I’m all about trying new things and I love using herbs in my cooking.
I should preface this tale by making it very clear that I’m not a bartender. I can cook like a champ and I can bake pretty well too, but I’ve never been a natural at making drinks. In fact, nearly every time, from college onward, that I have attempted a mixed drink, cocktail or other icy beverage concoction including smoothies that require ice and a blender, it inevitably turns out disastrously. I have a literal laundry list of pretty little alcoholic drinks I have tried to make and failed at. The problem is that in theory whipping these things together is so easy. So if I can quickly, accurately, and tastily craft far more complex dishes, why can’t I master this? A few ingredients, a handful of ice, and a minute in the blender is all it takes. What’s so difficult about pulling this off? Never the one to just gracefully accept my weakness and let it go, I decided to give it a whirl thinking that this time will be different. And it all went great until the end. Though it is fair to say that when the recipe calls for three sprigs of thyme, use three or even four if you relish a stronger hint of thyme, but six may have been overkill. I’m a recipe tweaker. I like to make my mark on recipes with a unique change or two to really make it my own, but in the future I think I’ll stick to tweaking less potent ingredients. Trial and error my friends.
I’d pureed the blackberries and thyme until it reached a delicious and vibrantly purple consistency, and then mixed in the correct measurements of rum, simple syrup, triple sec, lime and sparkling water. I dumped it all back in the food processor (because mine is supposed to be able to chop ice and I didn’t want to pull out the big blender for two tiny little drinks), dropped in a handful of ice, closed the lid securely, locked it, held my hand over it, and hit “high” on the food processor. Looking back, it may have been a touch full, but whatever, right? It’ll be fine. And then it all went to hell.
Blackberry juice (blackberries that stain, might I add) exploded out of the food processor. There was blackberry drink slush oozing down the sides of the food processor, and splatters of it decorating the cabinets, the counters, the walls, the floor, the socks on Ted’s feet, my white tank top, and the basil plant. The kitchen looked like a crime scene. The sink was full of deep purple debris, my white tank top became tie-dye, the tan dish towel morphed into the purple dish towel, and the floor was a sticky mess. The ice remained unchopped. Of course.
I stood there totally dumbfounded while Ted calmly carried the remains of my precious blackberry thyme margaritas over to the sink and tried, unsuccessfully, to chop the rest of the ice and salvage what was left. They tasted merely okay, so I don’t think I’ll be making them again, in part because this particular patch of blackberries wasn’t very sweet or flavorful, but it also might have tasted a little less bitter had I not decided to get my money’s worth out of that $1.99 bundle of thyme. I think I’ll refrain from tempting fate and trying to sharpen my mad mixed drink skills for at least the next month or so. That’s what trained bartenders are for. My talents, clearly, lie elsewhere.
And I never did get to use the delicate little thyme sprig and speared blackberry garnish that I admired so.
Epic fail.
Or, as Ted said,
“That wasn’t an epic fail. That was a royal epic fail.”
