08 Aug Please The Palate Pick of the Week: Harveys Bristol Cream and S’mores

There is nothing more quintessential when it comes to camping than sitting around a fire making s’mores. S’mores are so iconic that it got its own day and August 10th is National S’mores Day. While kids and adults alike enjoy s’mores, it is fun for the adults to wash the sweet treats down with some Harveys Bristol Cream. Pair your s’mores with some Harveys Bristol Cream and you will see why it is the Please The Palate pick of the week. Harveys Bristol Cream is a sherry. It is a blend of two grapes (80% Palomino and 20% Pedro Ximénez, aka PX) and four different Sherry styles: Fino, Amontillado, Oloroso and Pedro Ximénez. It is aged in American oak casks using the traditional system of soleras and criaderas. There is no cream of any kind in the liquor. In the late 17th century, the popular sweetened golden colored Oloroso sherry was known as milk sherry, or Bristol Milk, in the UK.  The term Bristol milk was coined because most of the sherry trade to the UK was passing through the port of Bristol. Harveys, founded in 1796 in Bristol by John Harvey, was the largest importer of sherry in the 19th century and they had their own Bristol Milk. In the 1860s, John Harvey II and his brother Edward were visited in their cellars by an aristocratic woman who wanted to try a new blend of Bristol Milk they had been working on that was richer, darker colored and included more and older Olososo. Her response was, “if that is Milk, then this must be Cream.” The new blend Bristol Cream was born and the brand was trademarked in 1882. Harveys Bristol Cream has a sweet nose of caramelized apples, raisins and nuts with hints of toffee and spice. On the palate, it is smooth with a creamy mid-palate and bright acidity and finishes with brown sugar notes. To pair with my Harveys Bristol Cream, I whipped up a batch of Smore’s Bars, a great option if you have a craving but don’t have a campfire. Super simple to make, I engaged my niece to help me. She pounded the graham crackers into crumbs which we then mixed with butter and salt. We then pressed the mixture into a pan and baked it for 10 minutes. We then topped with marshmallows and put back into the oven for 10 more minutes. Once it came out of the oven, we let it cool for 5 minutes and then added the chocolate chips, some more marshmallows and some more graham cracker crumbs. Once it chilled, we cut it up. The kids loved the super sweet sticky treat and the adults enjoyed washing it down with glasses of Harveys Bristol Cream. The acidity of Harveys Bristol Cream cut through the sweetness of the S’mores Bars…..a perfect balance.