The two Ed's 'Inishowen' Whiskey and Elderfower Ice-cream

The two Ed’s ‘Inishowen Whiskey’ and Elderflower Ice-cream

Capturing  Essence.
Thanks to @bidgestoneEd  who reported wonderful  snippets of information from the  2^nd Inishfood festival , one of them from Ed Hick's talk on Taste, notably that Whiskey and Elderflower  go well together, and thanks to the warm weather this week the elder-flowers are finally starting to release some of their headiness and that the  2^nd ‘Whiskylive' event is  happening  in Dublin makes for natural pairing.  I’d need for a whiskey based dessert to include on a Whiskey menu at work, ice-cream makes sense now that summers arrived. Which whiskey though to pair up with it was the challenge, I first searched whiskey and elderflower to see what was out there already on-line, Ed Hick popped again well at least a 2min ‘youtube’ video of a cocktail named  after him ‘Ed Hick's Whiskey Elderflower' being made in 'the sugar club' Dublin,  and can be seen at this link,  http://youtu.be/pH5RPz5nKBg

A little further research  ‘whiskey notes grape’ brought up Tasting notes for a whiskey called ‘Inishowen’, now made by  Cooley Distillery, that made happy coincidence, it’s not the most common of whiskeys in shops though so as in Ed's cocktail use Jameson or another Irish whiskey.
thanks to the two Ed's


The essence of the Inishfood Festival is well captured by Sally aka @bridgestoneEd in her Blog http://kitchenlifeskills.blogspot.com/
The other Ed' can be found in most good Markets selling Pork products not least 'Bacon Jam', but at www.hicks.ie  or  on twitter @edhick are a good start to follow his trail.

The Ice-cream

Ingredients

1 Tin of condensed milk 390gms

500 ml cream

2 handfuls of elder-flowers approx 60gms (with the stems on is fine), if you cant get the flowers 50ml  of cordial should do.

100ml whiskey

Method

In a saucepan bring 50ml cream and half the whiskey  with the elder flowers to the boil, to infuse the flavours, and then leave to one side to cool over ice or in the freezer. Strain when chilled.

Put the the rest of the cream and beat with a whisk ( if your using an electric  mixer do this on a low speed always beat cream on a low speed gives as  it more strength and it holds itself better  for longer)  until it just starts to stiffen then fold in the condensed milk.

Now gently stir the elderflower cream add the rest of the whiskey to taste, you should get whiskey first then the elderflower  notes will arrive.

Place into a plastic container and freeze should take 3-4 hours depending on the container dimensions, divide into smaller amounts if you’re in a hurry.

Enjoy plain in a bowl or with a tipple.