Pumpkin Syrup

Pumpkin Syrup recipe:

2 cups of water
2 cups of demerara sugar
2 cups of pumpkin puree
whole cinnamon sticks, cloves, grated nutmeg, and allspice to taste.

Not too hard. Mainly, equal parts water, sugar (Demerara or brown), pumpkin puree. You CAN do can, but obviously it's better to just bake the pumpkin yourself and make your own puree. To do this, cut a pumpkin in half and remove the stem. Scoop out all the seeds and gross stringy innards. Then wrap each half in aluminum foil. Bake at 350 for about 1.5 hours. You'll know it is done, because the hard shell will start to separate from the insides which will be all nice and soft. You scoop out the insides and put them all into a food processor to make it all a creamy puree. THERE IS YOUR PUMPKIN PUREE!! SEEE!?? EASY!

Then you add your equal parts water, puree, raw or brown sugar to a pot with whole cloves, whole cinnamon sticks, fresh grated nutmeg and allspice dram (or any other sort of allspice delivery method you might have.) This part here is sort of less of a science and more of an art. You sort of feel it out, but you want to make it all nice and pumpkin pie flavored. You start on medium heat till the sugar is dissolved, then take it down to low head and simmer it for about 20 minutes remember to stir it all up occasionally. After this, strain out all the solids, and push as much as the gooey goodness through the strainer as you can with a big spoon or something. Then you have your pumpkin syrup!!! Delicious for all sorts of cocktails (and coffee too!) The perfect fall treat. Remember, it's always good to add a bit of vodka, or high proof, neutral grain spirit to help it keep longer. And of course, store it in the fridge!