Milky Way Galaxy: A Cocktail Experiment

We're not big drinkers in our house — if anything, we usually stick to beer and wine — so naturally, we have an entire corner in our pantry devoted to the liquor we acquired during college and subsequently never drank.

Undergrad ended four years ago.

Not because we don't like the taste, though! We just don't make mixed drinks all that often. I'm a big fan of amaretto, but the bottle sat 3/4 of the way empty because I couldn't think of anything to mix it with, and I wasn't going to do shots at home alone.

A few weeks ago, I felt like having a cocktail, and Matt suggested mixing the amaretto with milk. Intrigued, I googled amaretto milk cocktails, and found a recipe for a Milky Way Galaxy. It was quite delicious, but a little too sweet for my taste (and I accidentally poured too much cinnamon on top). So I decided to play around with the recipe a bit.

I tried removing the vanilla extract altogether. I tried subbing in chocolate syrup, then cocoa powder, then hot chocolate mix. I tried replacing the cinnamon on top with coconut (then I learned that coconut makes for a crunchy cocktail, and that's never good). I tried adding coconut rum. All the variations tasted pretty similar. And then I ran out of amaretto.

Just a couple of the variations.

So while I intended to create my own new cocktail, I wasn't willing to buy another bottle to keep experimenting. But I'll say this: milk and amaretto are delicious together, and if you have a bottle of it sitting around, you should just mix those two things together and know that it'll be good no matter what else you throw in. (Except the cocoa powder. That was really terrible.)

What is your favorite cocktail? Do you like to play around with drink recipes or stick to what's tried and true?