Christy's Christmas Smash Cookies

My sister Christy created the cookies pictured above in memory of Dad's enjoyment of a Christmas smash. My father called a shot of booze or any kind of mixed drink a smash. He loved people to come by the house for a Christmas smash. Christy's cookies are called Christy's Christmas Smash cookies.

She invented these cookies after reading my blog post entitled Christmas Smash. My post inspired Christy to go against the grain of her usual "by the book" approach to baking and create a sweet delight of her own. A few years ago Christy had made Cognac Sugarplums (and they danced in my head). They were similar to bourbon balls. Christy's Christmas Smash cookies would be a variation upon the Cognac Sugarplum.

She describes the making of the Smash cookies this way:

I found a few other truffle type recipes and tonight mixed
together what I thought sounded the best and made
Christy's Christmas Smash. I didn't have cognac so in
honor of Dad I mixed a little brandy, a little whiskey
(left by you Bill a few years ago), and dark rum.
Fortunately, I only had good stuff... no Carstairs.
The recipe is a nice mixture of espresso, dark cocoa,
booze, nuts, and sweet stuff. You put them away and
let them do whatever they do in a tin.

I think what they do in a tin is breed liquor inflected sweetness. It is as if the sugar and booze and orange and espresso comingle and are fruitful and mulitply into a family of complex and nearly unbearable rich flavors.

More impressive is that Christy has managed to create a confection of family history in her Christmas Smash cookies.

They are a tribute cookie. They pay tribute to Grandma Woolum who made fudge from a recipe off a marshmellow creme jar that combined Hershey's bars with sugar with marshmellow creme and were so sweet that after I ate a piece I would see purple and green rhinos dressed in tie dye dancing ballet to "Break on Through (to the Other Side)".

They pay tribute to the box of booze Dad bought every Christmas season in anticipation of Christmas visitors he could mix a Christmas smash for. Had we hosted a Betty Ford relapse party, we could never have served all the booze Dad bought. Mom snapped at Dad about all that booze. But, Dad had a plan. If booze was still around after Christmas, he could have a few January smashes and on Wednesday night from 9-10 the Black Velvet would magnify his respect for the Statler Brothers' bass Harold Reid and give him the courage to mush mouth sing along with Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee".

They pay tribute to the long family tradition of cookie variety, evenings devoted to baking everything from sesame butter cookies to walnut toffee bars to pack into little bags or boxes and deliver to neighbors and other friends as a way of spreading generosity and good cheer. The anchor of this tradition is my mother, and both my sisters have out-Mary-ed our mother in divining new kinds of cookies and other treats and sweets. The Christy Christmas Smash cookie is the new epitome of invention and variety.

Lastly, Christy's Christmas Smash cookies pay tribute to sitting in Mom's living room and telling stories. Once these free for alls get started, not even God knows what biways and detours and dead ends our stories might take as we try to figure out who married whom and who went on which trip on what Christmas to Orofino. It's all about trying to find out the truth. These stories are often triggered by cookies. Christy's Christmas Smash cookies are a new story, beginning with Cognac Sugarplums and continuing with Kelloggbloggin and fueled by Dad's love of Christmas smashes and detoured by recalling the details of the drive we took to Metaline Falls where I bought the whiskey that I left at Christy's that went into the recipe that became the cookie Christy calls Christmas Smashes.