This week, I have one coworker who is leaving us for a new job, and another who is celebrating a birthday. DOUBLE the excuses to bake!

I found a recipe quite some time ago for Jack Daniels Honey Whiskey cupcakes (the pictures on that page are way nicer than mine – I just took shots with my phone again). I knew immediately that my booze-lovin’ coworkers would appreciate a batch of those, but at the time I had holidays to bake for. My baking to-do list was pretty long; I bookmarked the recipe and forgot about it.

Until now.

One of my coworkers gave notice, and Friday is his last day. Thursday is another coworker’s birthday. The obvious choice for this non-holiday celebration: booze this recipe.

I made the batter and started happily filling cups, only to realize I never actually looked at the yield – only a dozen cupcakes. Oops. That just won’t do. So I made a second batch. This was also my first time using the convection feature in my new oven, so I was peering in the little window on the oven door constantly, fearing I would either under- and overcook the poor things.

I didn’t use the buttercream portion of that recipe. I decided to stick with my own tried-and-true buttercream, and just reduce the cream and vanilla, and add the whiskey. I do actually sift a full 4 cups of the powdered sugar these days when I make the frosting, so pretty soon here I’m going to have the strongest forearms in the world. *flex*

Then I figured, well, I doubled the batter recipe and I used my standard buttercream (which will usually frost a little more than 2 dozen cupcakes), so it stands to reason I should double the “bourbon drizzle” part of this recipe, too. Right?

Okay, so… one whole cup of the whiskey? Allll riiiiight…

While making the drizzle, I admit I stopped paying attention and let it boil over a bit. Oops. It turned out much thinner than I expected, but I figured it tasted like… you know… brown sugar and whiskey. While I waited for it to cool, I got the cupcakes frosted with pretty swirlies. For the first time possibly ever, I had exactly the right amount of frosting for the number of cupcakes. There was a weird sense of satisfaction in that, so I had to brag.

The drizzle got poured into a decorating squeeze bottle, and I started doing the obvious: drizzling it. It turns out the buttercream was perfectly stiff enough and the drizzle perfectly viscous enough that the syrup oozed down through the swirls in a slow, tidy way. It was SO cool to watch.

And there you have it! Boozey celebratory cupcakes! They were declared: “YUMMY!” “Your best cupcakes yet!” “Awesome!” “Life-giving!” and various other complimentary things, so you should probably go ahead and make these (or pay me to make them for you *ahem*).

Here is how a clever birthday guy carefully transports a cupcake home to his whiskey-lovin’ wife: