White Lighting

It's never to early to be thinking of Winter cockails, especially when one friend gives you a GREAT gift and another, an even better idea! The gift was a large mason jar filled with Moonshine, and the idea was what to do with all that white whiskey.

Cameron Eubanks, star real estate agent and super star of Bravo’s Southern Charm, presented the Dean with a bottle of Moonshine made by one of her husband’s patients.  Another friend, who happens to be Director of the esteemed Metropolitan Museum's Collections, came for dinner, spied the hooch on the kitchen counter and immediately recommended soaking cherries in the elixir.  Is everyone at the Met a painting, sculpture AND cocktail expert? 

Being the ever-resourceful leader that the Charleston Academy requires, the Dean knows a genius idea when she hears one. Once the mason jar was opened, the aroma intoxicated in the most delicious way, defying hooch's longtime reputation as a toxic, radiator-strength, not-to-mention sometimes illegal, hillbilly concoction. By the following morning the counter in the Academy’s lab was covered with jars filled with cherries and white lightening. 

Twenty four hours later and tonight is the NIGHT to bite into the cherry (because who can follow Carrie’s advice and wait?) For a dinner party dessert, we'll serve a moonshine cherry sitting atop scoops of vanilla ice cream and roasted peaches for an Academy Sundae. The next taste will have to wait until October, Old Fashioned month, when we will serve our trademark cocktail in a flat-bottomed crystal glass, embellished with a twist of citrus, Party Ice, and cherries bursting with hooch.

P.S. POP QUIZ! What is the best part of attending class at the Charleston Academy of Domestic Pursuits, besides learning how to live a more beautiful life? The answer: No other institution of higher learning starts class with a cocktail!