Boozy Molasses Cookies and Milk Shake

Who doesn’t love a holiday flavored drink? This shake has it all with creamy vanilla ice cream, crushed ginger snaps, and sticky sweet molasses all blended with a bit of bourbon. A truly classic holiday flavor made boozy, and perfect for a night in or to serve at a party.

Just interested in the recipe? Skip straight to it.

I love coming up with cocktails and felt especially pressured (all my own doing) to come up with a holiday cocktail. Now, the Christmas cocktail market is saturated. Seriously, every flavor or combination I could think of was already created by someone else, and Y’all know I have to be all hipster and unique when it comes to drinks.

After a ton of research and list making, I was stumped and just figured I would call it quits. Then, my sister randomly said that I should do a molasses cocktail, and after some quick googling, that seemed like the perfect flavor to go off of! Now, I won’t bore you with the rest of how the milkshake came to be, but basically, after much testing, I needed some milk in the drink and if you’re adding milk why not throw in some ice cream and make a shake?

Now, I am not a lover of molasses. I enjoy it as an addition in many baked goods and see a culinary use for it, but I wouldn’t normally jump for a product or food that contains it. This shake may have changed that. It isn’t overly molasses-y, but rather a great balance between sweet and spice, and it definitely isn’t gingerbread (would need a couple more spices for that). Plus, for once, I actually enjoy the light alcohol taste in a drink. Most of my recipes hide it pretty well, and so does this one, but the bourbon really pulls it together and you can actually taste the bourbon-y notes (can you tell I know a ton about bourbon?).

How to Get the Same Look

I’m not about making my food unachievable. I like to style it like I would serve it and don’t use any weird or impossible to achieve techniques. Here is how to get the individual elements to make your shake look great:

Molasses and Cookie Rim

Take the glass of your choice, and carefully paint on a thin layer of molasses with a clean finger. Make it however wide or thin you want and you can follow the shape of the glass a bit like I did. Take half a cookie (or more depending on cookie size) and crush it very fine. Bigger crumbs will not stick as nicely and may fall off. Place the cookie crumbs onto a paper plate and nicely roll over the crumbs with the molasses rimmed glass. To get a good cover, roll over the same area a few times and with a bit of pressure (like you are crushing the cookies with the glass). Go around the entire rim until it is covered to your preference.

Molasses Drizzle

After rimming the glass and filling it most of the way with the shake, top with whipped cream. Take a small spoon and pour some molasses into it. Carefully tip the spoon over the whipped cream until the molasses is almost pouring over, then lightly pull up to create a smaller stream and move back and forth over the whipped cream. You want to do a very thin drizzle because molasses is strong. Don’t go over the whipped cream several times or in a criss-cross, just do one quick pass over and try to get a small amount of molasses on there. If you get more, don’t worry about it. If you get a lot on there, take a spoon and scoop off the whipped cream and try again.

Cut Ginger Snap

To get a perfectly cut cookie look, take a serrated knife and run it back and forth (in a sawing motion) over the cookie to slowly wear it down in the same area until it breaks apart. It takes a hot minute, but you’ll get a perfectly cut cookie! Use the other half for the crumb rim (above).

Recipe

Boozy Molasses Cookies and Milk Shake

Servings: One 12 oz glass
Time: 5 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
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Creamy vanilla ice cream, crushed gingersnap cookies, and sticky sweet molasses all blended with a bit of bourbon.

Read above for how to style your shake like mine.

For a non-alcoholic shake, skip the bourbon (may need a bit more milk).

For the cookie, you could use a molasses, gingersnap, or gingerbread.

Ingredients

1/2 a cookie (or to preference, I used Pamela’s GF Ginger Crispy Cookies)
1 1/2 cups good quality vanilla ice cream (measured with a dry measuring cup)
1/4 cup milk
1 oz bourbon (or whiskey)
1 teaspoon molasses (I used this one)
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Crush cookie. Roughly crush up your cookie. The cookie will crush too much in the blender, so this leaves it in big chunks.

2. Whisk together the milk and molasses. Whisk the milk and molasses together until mostly blended. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the container to get everything. If you just chuck the molasses into the blender with everything it will fall to the bottom and stick there.

3. Blend almost everything. Place the vanilla ice cream, molasses and milk mixture, bourbon, and cinnamon into the blender. Blend on low speed until combined. A high speed can cause it to melt and become very runny.

4. Stir in the cookie chunks. Once the shake is blended completely, stir in the cookie bits and pour into the glass of your choice.

5. Serve and enjoy! Top with whipped cream and any other bits you’d like, pop in a straw and enjoy!

6. Making a big batch. Scale all ingredients up to the amount desired (make sure it will fit into your blender or split it into a few batches). You may need more milk since the larger amount of ice cream will keep everything colder and thicker.