Creamy Almond-Rice Cooler (Horchata)

Tried out this recipe from Rick Bayless. Yum! Although if anyone comes up with a better way of straining it, please share! This was rather tedious and messy. "Dregs" doesn't do justice to the stuff you strain off, which was closer to a rice clay.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups rice
• 2 inch cinnamon stick
• water
• 1 cup milk or canned evaporated milk
• 2/3 to 3/4 cup sugar
• ice

Directions:

1. Soak the rice and cinnamon stick in 2 1/2 cups of water overnight.
2. Remove the cinnamon stick and put the mixture into a blender. Blend several minutes, until a drop rubbed between your fingers no longer feels very gritty. Add two more cups of water (if it'll fit - mine couldn't do it all at this point, so I just added it later on) and blend another minute. Strain the mixture through dampened cheesecloth over a colander set inside of a bowl. Stir it to help it through, or let it gravity feed about 20 minutes. Squeeze the dregs to get out all the liquid.
3. Add 1 1/2 cups of water and the cup of milk. Stir in enough sugar to sweeten to your taste. Refrigerate to chill and add ice.

Variation - in step three, cut the water down to 1/2 cup and add a 14 ounce can of coconut milk. (Rick Bayless recommends using 3 cups of the coconut style horchata mixed with 2 cups of pineapple, 2 cups rum, and 2 cups of ice cubes for a new style of pina colada. Wow.) He also says you can also use a bit of lime zest in place of the cinnamon.