Christmas in Phil’s house isn’t Christmas until the first batch of Mindy’s Coquito is made. Coquito is a traditional Puerto Rican Christmas drink that can best be described as a coconut eggnog with an extra rum kick. After having made a “Sasquatch” version of our Mindy Porter using oak chips soaked in Social Still’s Sasquatch Bourbon we decided we would try aging it on chips soaked in coconut rum to see if it worked. It did – and the base of our Coquito Porter was born.
It was decided that we’d use a touch of lactose in the final brew, which turned out to be the last one we did in the old kitchen homebrew set-up. Everything came out perfectly and all we had to do was wait to bottle.
And we waited.
Almost too long.
When it finally got bottled we realized we only had a week to get it labeled and out to our friends and family. Jake went home and hit Photoshop to come up with a Puerto Rican themed design and Descanso de Papa Noel (“Santa’s Rest”) was christened.
UPDATE: When brewing the 2020 holiday beer in September we opened a bottle of this and it still drinks great. So if you haven’t opened yours yet, DO IT!!