Sunset Cocktail: Peanut Butter Cup Cocktail on National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day

1 1/2 oz Godiva Dark Chocolate Liqueur (divided)
1 oz Tia Maria Coffee Liqueur
1 oz Zufanek Orechovka (Hazelnut) Liqueur
2 tbsps Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter*
2 oz Almond Milk
Fox’s U-bet Chocolate Syrup

Decorate the inside of the glass with a bit of Chocolate Syrup. Add some of the Godiva (1/2 to 3/4 oz, just enough to keep a nice dark layer) on the bottom of the glass and set aside. In a shaker, stir (yes, stir first) the rest of the alcohols with the Peanut Butter until the Peanut Butter blends in. Add the Milk with some ice and shake. Strain into the prepared glass, garnish with a peanut butter cup, and wallow in a decadent sugar crash.

For any who don’t know me, I. Love. Peanut Butter. When I was a kid my father worked for what was then Best Foods and they made Skippy. I remember him coming home from work with boxes of unlabeled jars that I believe were part of taste screenings and experimental formulas. I felt like each jar was was a unique, special thing and that I was part of a small, select group of people privy to the secrets behind the great minds of Peanut Butter alchemy. To this day, it’s the only brand I buy.

Hardest part was not fucking up the cup.

When I say I love peanut Butter, you should also know that this acute love is mirrored by an intense hate for bad Peanut Butter and fake Peanut Butter flavoring. Anything that isn’t true, pure and real Peanut Butter is an affront to all that is good, aside from Reese’s peanut Butter cups which are, in their own right, a gift from very wise and generous gods. Also, my grandparents lived in Hershey Pennsylvania so Reese’s are as much an escape to care-free childlike state of being as Skippy.

With the hate of bad peanut Butter products also is the distaste for the misuse of Peanut Butter. Unfortunately that means I don’t like Peanut Butter in Ice Cream or anything else other than on bread, apples and in Peanut Butter Cups. This drink would also qualify. The idea of this drink is horrifying, it’s a pain in the ass to make (especially trying to not melt or mangle the peanut butter cup garnish), and it’s sickeningly sweet. It took a bit of will to create but I did so to express my love and appreciation for the national holiday and fit it into yet another reason to make an odd drink.

I will probably never make it again, though, I must say that the second iteration I made (as above) was a bit better than the original I got it from. It seemed to resemble, though not well, a peanut butter cup a little more. All I did was change out the Creme de Cacao with Godiva (waaaaay better), add the layering (which may or may not have actually worked) and remove the rum (which I didn’t really understand the need for). One last point in keeping with a rant about Margaritas the other day, I really do appreciate the original poster of this drink for not calling it a Peanut Butter Cup Martini.

* Life is too short for flavored vodka, fake maple syrup and bad peanut butter. That shitty, I’m-a-superior-hippy, organic, gotta-stir-it-every-hour-to-keep-it-homogeneous, shit in a jar is just as great a blasphemy as Teddy Bear Peanut Butter or some rancid Costco-ish brand. If you’re not going to get a jar of divine Skippy, then for fuck’s sake get Jif. If you are a completely cheap bastard, the only store brand worth eating is Wegman’s. Wegman’s Peanut Butter actually isn’t really that bad at all.