Bombardino Time and Giveaway Winner

I'm back .... and we have a winner chosen at random from the responses to my query about the name of the drink.
The winner is Katie of Summertree Cafe, but Katie, you don't list your email address on your blog. So please contact me so I can send you the chocolates in the photo. Email me at mirandasmother@gmail.com with your full name and address.

I'll be posting some recipes in the coming weeks from my visit to relatives and friends, and a week of skiing in the Italy's Dolomite mountains.

I'll start with the drink that several of you guessed correctly from the picture, even though naming it correctly wasn't a requirement to winning. It's a bombardino - great for steadying the nerves when you're a little apprehensive about that next mogul. The drink is most popular in the winter at ski resorts and it's made using Vov, a liqueur made with eggs, and rum or brandy or whisky, plus whipped cream on top. It's almost like drinking a warm (and highly spiked) eggnog with whipped cream. In Italy, you can also find bottles of bombardino already mixed and ready to warm up. It's always served in clear glass cups, sometimes with a straw and a spoon.

For those of you unable to get to Italy and enjoy a bombardino, I'm posting a recipe for the drink adapted from "Italian Kitchen Secrets."
My aunt used to make her own Vov and stored it in a cabinet. But just to be safe, I'd recommend keeping it in the refrigerator until ready to consume.

With a foot of snow forecast here today in Central New Jersey, it might be just what you need to spur you to shovel that driveway or sidewalk.

Bombardino:
3 cups of non-skimmed milk
29 ounces sugar
6 egg yolks
1 cup alcohol (brandy or whisky) and
1 cup rum
(or 2 cups of either brandy, whisky or rum)
1 tablespoon vanilla

Boil the milk with half of the sugar, gently mixing occasionally. Lower to a simmer and cook a couple of minutes, then turn off heat and keep warm.
In a large bowl, mix the egg yolks with the other half of the sugar until creamy and frothy. Add the warm milk in a slow stream, mixing well to avoid lumps. Filter through a strainer if necessary. Add the vanilla, alcohol and rum, mix again and pour into bottles. Wait one week before drinking (if you can), shaking the bottles occasionally.

In our opinion, bombardini are best enjoyed with a slice of apple strudel, ever prevalent on the slopes in the Val Gardena, a beautiful area of three small villages in the Dolomites. The Dolomites are the mountains in the eastern part of the Italian Alps, close to Austria, and are noted for their unique, almost-stalagtite formation and rosy color. The area at one time was below sea level, and many marine fossils are still found today. So we were actually skiing in what once was a barrier reef, hard as it seems to imagine.

Recipe for strudel to follow later.