Hopsicles Update

Radley Balko | June 22, 2007

Intrepid journalist that I am, I ventured to Rustico for lunch today to give the "hopsicle" a try (it's a tough job...).

Sadly, they're no longer serving them. At least until the state alcohol control tyrants give them the okay. The bar tender told me the owner is trying to cook the beer and add a few ingredients before freezing—just enough to let the idea fit under the exemption the Alcohol Control Board grants for cooking with alcohol. I did try the St. Louis Framboise that inspired the idea, though, and it's quite good, though my inner frat guy won't quite let me call it a "beer." But I'd imagine it'd make a delicious frozen treat.

Rustico's battle with the ABC over the hopsicle idea apparently made CNN earlier today.

Also, try the soups.

Comments

Robert|6.22.07 @ 3:11PM|#

Why wouldn't cooking the beer without adding ingredients be enough? If you distill off the alcohol, it's no longer alcoholic, is it?

|6.22.07 @ 3:34PM|#

Inner frat boy indeed! Belgian brewers have been adding fruit to their lambic style beers for hundreds of years now. That stuff is old school.

highnumber|6.22.07 @ 3:49PM|#

Soups on a summer day?
Unless we're talking gazpacho or vichyssoise, you go to hell!
Soups on a summer day...grumble...grumble...What kind of an idiot has soup in the summer?

rob sama|6.22.07 @ 4:11PM|#

I suppose frozen margaritas are illegal too?

|6.22.07 @ 4:21PM|#

rob sama,

Sadly, our dwindling tequila supply makes that a moot point.

You maniacs! You burned it up! Ah, damn ethanol! Damn ethanol to hell!

|6.23.07 @ 6:10AM|#

Robert -- It takes quite a lot of cooking to distill off all the alcohol; the notion that all the alcohol cooks out of a wine sauce is largely fiction. Plus, you can just cover the pot while it boils and get back all the alcohol you would have lost by giving the lid a little shake.

Reducing the alcohol content a bit, though, would also raise the freezing point and make the hopsicle a more practical notion anyway. There's probably a happy medium to be discovered here.