Can I Use A Different Alcohol For The Ultimate Christmas Pudding?

Our answer

Nigella's Ultimate Christmas Pudding (from NIGELLA CHRISTMAS) has dried fruits that are soaked in Pedro Ximenez sherry before being added to the pudding batter. Pedro Ximenez (PX) is a rich, sweet sherry that has notes of fig, treacle and liquorice. When added to the dried fruits it gives depth to the flavour of the pudding, though you can use other alcohols instead.

Stroh is an Austrian company that is particularly famous for Stroh 80, a very strong spiced rum that is around 80% ABV (160 proof). This is significanlty more than sherry (around 15% ABV) and brandy and whisky (which don't usually go above 60% ABV). However, the alcohol should evaporate during the long steaming process and not leave a strong alcohol taste in the pudding. So if you like the underlying spicing of the Stroh 80 then you could use it in the pudding, though our preference would still be to use PX sherry. However, the Stroh 80's high ABV makes it quite flammable and good for flaming the Christmas pudding, but we would suggest making sure that the pudding is on a heatproof serving plate and use about half the amount of the Stroh (60ml/1/4 cup) as it will burn more fiercely than the vodka.