Make This: A Nourishing Nut Milk 'Chai'

Taking inspiration from Palm Heights

I’m just home from Palm Heights, which I’ll write more about later this week. I covered the property for Yolo Journal last year and was anxious for a return visit. I was skeptical about it “holding up,” as I am about most things with an endless supply of buzz. It exceeded our expectations.

I love a resort experience because it is basically a protracted people-watching opportunity - my favorite activity. I’ll have plenty of observations to share with my paid subscribers tomorrow, including the name of the blue-chip artist who was vacationing with his family, and why guys wear “vacation shirts.”

For today, I wanted to write about a drink from our stay that you can make at home.

Each morning after breakfast, we’d amble over to the empty beach chairs and pick our spots for the day. (I refuse to “claim” beach chairs before I’m ready to use them, and I’m repelled by the people who do. It upsets the natural order of things.)

After a busy morning of swimming around, we always looked forward to something off the smoothie menu - a good vacation being nothing more than a series of little treats punctuating the day. Palm Heights is run by the team behind Happier Grocery in NYC, and their newly launched smoothie menu was great, as expected.

Our favorite was “Balance,” billed as an iced almond milk chai. It was creamy, well-spiced, and was the ideal bridge between breakfast and lunch - not as filling as a smoothie, with enough good fat to satiate. It was made with traditional chai spices - cardamom, ginger, cinnamon - but without the caffeine from black tea that you’d find in a traditional chai.

As I always do, I feigned ignorance and asked for as much detail about the drink as the staff could divulge. I swore to my wife I’d replicate it when I got home. It was much richer than typical almond milk - apparently, they incorporate cashews which lent it the heft I found so appealing.

Back at home, I engineered a version of my own. Dare I say: I might prefer it.

Nut Milk ‘Chai’

Longtime readers will know that my recipes are written quite intuitively. I assume a certain level of experience from my readers and play fast and loose with measurements. For this recipe, I was after precision so I could replicate it consistently for my family, so I used a scale, and suggest you do, as well. This is an important tool and this is the one I prefer.

I’ve also suggested specific brands of nut butters to achieve the same outcome.