My husband and my mom share a secret…and I’m almost embarrassed to admit it. For two people that have reasonably trustworthy taste-buds, they both love fruitcake. Weirdos, I know. They are the lone rebels on our family with this affliction. Come holiday time, they really want some dang fruitcake.

Normally, I take a lazy way out and order them a Kentucky Bourbon Fruitcake from Gethsemani Farms, which they agree is the best fruitcake on earth (those monks sure know what they’re doing). Unfortunately, time got away from me this year, so I assumed that they would just have to do without.

That is, until my husband happened to catch the tail-end of the Good Eats episode in which Alton Brown makes a fruitcake. Next thing I know, I’m on an adventure through the supermarket to track down a laundry list of fruitcake-making items.

Surprisingly, it was a fairly easy process. I particularly liked soaking the fruit in rum:

I figure if I can’t have a cocktail, I can at least live vicariously through others by cooking with very good booze. I also like to make my husband the cocktails I wish I could have:

But that’s beside the point, I guess. The cake appears to have turned out ok:

But it still needs a few days to “cure” and a couple of more brandy showers before they give it the official taste test. I’ll be interested to see how it compares, or whether we should leave the fruitcake prep to the monks next year.

So, mom and my husband get their yearly dose of holiday cliché.

But personally, I still think they are weirdos.