As I go to Dragon*Con every year, and as this ultimately entails some exposure to Thomas' "Apple Pie" (a delectible beverage which is tastes like apple pie, and hides LOTS of boozeahol), I have over the years devoted a considerable amount of my skills to collecting clues as to the contents of, and procedure for making, Apple Pie.

Now, it turns out that last night was Halloween, and for Halloween, we made some Pie. We also made pumpkin cookies (which were nummy), and then we sat in the Basement at Mallet, and consuming said Pie and Cookies, read The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. It was nice, and a lot of fun. But you probably don't care about that. You probably care about the Pie.

Now, room exists for improvement, but this recipie is close to the pie of legend. It's most alarming distinction is that it is not clear; I made it with apple cider, but pie is clear like apple juice. Without further ado, here is the recipie for batch #2 (batch #1 was too sharp).

Batch #2 Pie: In a LARGE pot, mix 1 gallon apple cider and 375 ml of PGA; cover pot, and begin heating. In general, keep the pot covered, you don't want to cook off all the alcohol. Also, the alcohol must be in the pot when you cook the spices, or else it doesn't work. Measure out 1 cup of honey, mix into pot (you must mix the honey, or it will boil on the bottom). Measure out 16 whole cloves, and 1 tbsp each of nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice. Mix spices slowly into pot (if you dump them in, they will clump up, and form balls on the surface). Re-Cover pot. Bring pot to roiling boil for 5 minutes. Turn off the heat, and let the pot cool. At this point, the spices should be settling to the bottom, and not floating on the surface. You want to filter them out (this is hard), we used a mix of a metal filter (the perpetual coffie filters you can get in any coffee section) for most of the batch, and a paper coffee filter when were filtering the dregs (this sucks, the spices clog it up and goes slowly, maybe cheese cloth would be better). Re-bottle your pie (it should almost fit back in the gallon jug (guess you'll have to drink the extra), and chill your pie. Drink cold.

Now, the batch #2 pie tasted like it could hide a good deal more alcohol than we put in it. After the spices have been cooked, there isn't anything stopping you from adding more PGA to the finished Pie, and I'm going to try adding another 375ml next time. The Pie Research Institute will dilligently report any future findings.