I've had a jar of coffee and you can't stop me from sleeping all weekend

[venta]

I am a big fan of mint milkshakes. They are, however, tricky to find. Java, the internet café in Whitby, sells them. I found a stall at Glastonbury that sold them. But that's it.

A while back, I bought some peppermint oil from Culpeper's. I wondered if a few drops, mixed with milk, would be nice.

It wasn't.

It really, really wasn't. It was all the bad stuff mint can be: harsh, and bitter, and making the back of your throat feel like someone was blowing freezing cold air down it. I suspect I put too much in (though it was only a few drops). But I don't think it'd be nice even if you got the quantities right.

Don't do it, kids. I've gone back to the banana Nesquik.

Comments

[pseudomonas.livejournal.com]

Could you try whizzing some fresh mint with milk?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yup, tried that, and it's pretty horrible too :) I don't think it's sweet enough - I don't have a very sweet tooth, but you need something to take the harsh edge off the mint.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I reckon you need that Sirop de Menthe stuff you can buy in France: you know, where it comes in a cylindrical container with a green lid in the centre of the top, and you can buy blackcurrant, strawberry, aniseed and almost every other flavour you can think of as well. That stuff is very sweet, and I'm sure it would be delicious with milk. (If, y'know, you liked milk, which I personally don't).

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Actually that wouldn't be very nice, I suspect - you'd end up with something a lot like toothpaste !

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nope, I think purple_pen might be right. Certainly the stuff which Java uses to make them is the same as the flavoured syrups (sirops?) that they put in coffee. Which is green, in the case of mint :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with the exact stuff in that packaging, but that does sound very like what I want. But I don't really want to go to the bother of ordering stuff on line, and I've yet to locate somewhere from where it can be bought!

(Incidentally, did your parcel-ling arrive OK ? I never trust the PO these days.)

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

Yeah - I've never really seen it on sale here, or I'd be buying it regularly! I guess it's a case of begging someone who's going to France to bring you some back so you can try it out.

Yes, the parcel did arrive safely: thanks so much for the lovely thought! You should be getting a thank-you card for it any day now, but I still have a few left to write.

[(Anonymous)]

I even found a place in teh UK that looked like they were selling it online, but it turned out that they had put the wrong picture on their page. It is just a case of getting someone to come back from France with some. My friends are always confused when what I want from their booze cruise is Sirop de Menthe.

The Schwepps pepermint cordial that you can get in this country is just wrong. It might do well in cocktails, but never with water or milk.

David

[kate-r.livejournal.com]

YOu can but mint cordial and I'd suggest trying it with that - I made the same mistake with almond oil whist trying to make almod smoothies. You could also try googling for peppermint syrup.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Peppermint syrup is really what I want, but I'm far keener on the idea of finding some in a shop that I can wander in to, rather than finding an online supplier. Googling for information on the former hasn't yet sorted me anything out.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Eep! Peppermint essential oil?
One drop in my bath leaves me slightly tingly, so I'd hate to think of the effect of a few drops in a drink!

I've just had a mint cornetto which gives me the idea of whizzing up some mint icecream and milk to make a mint milkshake.

[sea-of-flame.livejournal.com]

Aiee - I'm not sure essential oil (which is what you'd have got from Culpeppers') is at ALL meant for consumption! Essential oils are meant for baths, compresses, massages - about the closest I'd get to using them for anything other than external use would be adding a few drops to hot water to use in a steam inhalation!

You want peppermint *essence* - from the cookery section of the supermarket!

Also, if you do want to try making from fresh herbs - remember there are a lot of types of mint - and the common mint you get in your garden isn't peppermint, it's the mint that goes with lamb ;)

[venta.livejournal.com]

The oil I bought from Culpeper's is meant for consumption - or at least, that's what they claimed when I bought it. I was always intending to use it (and the lemon oil I bought at the same time) in cooking, and checked it was intended for that when I bought it.

It doesn't say essential oil on the bottle, and I don't believe it's in the same packaging as their bathing and massing essential oils.

And no, I don't want peppermint essence, that doesn't work very well either :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Further to various people's comments: Although you can get peppermint cordial from (for example) Tesco, by far the easiest way to make nice mint shakes is to stick some milk in a blender with some mint icecream (about two scoops for a tall glass).

If you do want to try finding peppermint cordial, the trick is to realise that unlike the French sirop (mentioned by purple_pen above) it's clear, not green. Also good in cocktails, since it's more concentrated than creme de menthe so you don't have to fill your drink up with sugar syrup if that's not the intention. Mmm... Grasshoppers !

[venta.livejournal.com]

Aye, I've made ice cream milkshakes before. I just don't tend to have ice cream in as a rule, so never thought of it in this case.

Maybe I'll check out the Tesco ice cream range next time I'm there.

[(Anonymous)]

Wow! Frazier Chorus. I have a creakingly old tape copy of a couple of their albums and never ever found out anything about 'em... lovely lyrics, such as the subject line...

[metame.livejournal.com]

that was me posting, btw.

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

There is a tea shop in Lyndhurst which offers just about any milkshake flavour you can think of. Many of the syrups they used, as I recall, were coffee flavourings. A google search reveals this:

http://www.discountcoffee.co.uk/acatalog/Philibert_Routin_1883_Syrups_Frosted_Mint.html

which might be the kind of thing you want.