Whisky Marinated Grapes: a Dinner Party Abomination

Sometimes the best ideas are so simple. Think a plate of good quality dark chocolate with coffee in place of dessert after a civilised yet slightly bohemian dinner party; all the guests just helping themselves to a rustic chunk to savour as they tinkle with laughter in the candlelight a la Nigella Lawson’s hired friends on every cookery programme she’s ever done. Or, you know, cheesy puffs. So simple. So classic.

Sometimes the worst ideas are really simple too. Worryingly simple. So simple that any moron with a knife and a bottle of cheap booze could end up inflicting them on anybody. And that, friends, is what we are exploring today:

Whisky marinated grapes. Part of a bygone trend of the 70s to the 90s for wasting alcohol by pouring it on fruit. Remember melon with a shot of port inexplicably poured into its centre? Like that. I had a memory of grapes being subject to the same treatment for fancy dinner parties so I searched through old recipe books until I found the basic premise. And here we are.

You will need:

Some grapes.
Whisky. I am not a whisky drinker but, as luck would have it, I had half a bottle of Aldi’s finest in my cupboard from an attempt at making homemade Baileys at Christmas. It cost about £8.99. I’ll leave you to imagine the flavour and quality.
A lemon
Some honey
Wine glasses

Method:

1. Slice your grapes in half. You’ll need enough to fill about one third of each wine glass you’re using.

2. In a bowl, mix whisky, honey and lemon. Amounts can be left to your imagination but you want a bit more whisky than honey and only a little bit of lemon juice. Put the grapes in the bowl with the liquid, cover and put them in the fridge for a few hours. Have a little taste of the whisky mixture. Mmmmm, Benylin.

3. Take the grapes out of the fridge, whisk up some double cream and dollop it into the bottom of each wine glass. I used a Babycham glass for authenticity and frosted it with sugar, because who doesn’t enjoy something special happening around their rim?

4. Divide the grapes between the glasses then pour on the weird cough mixture juice.

Elegant.

The grapes are an absolute abomination. They taste like frogspawn that’s been left to marinate in a vat of Night Nurse. I tentatively added a bit of cream to the spoon, expecting the flavour to be an advert for veganism. Weirdly, not so. I didn’t realise how strongly the early 80s tasted like cream dunked in cheap booze until I put this in my mouth. A hundred weird food related memories came flooding back, which is concerning as I was aged 2-11 in that particular decade. Maybe it was acceptable to lace your kids jelly and ice cream with alcohol back then. It wouldn’t surprise me. Either way, I’ve just consumed a lot of cream, some questionable grapes and some a lot of cheap alcohol that’s given me that “I smoke 40 a day” feeling in my chest. I am nostalgic, somewhat nauseous and full of remorse.

Creamy cough syrup grapes: try them if you dare.