Adapted from The New Pie: Modern Techniques for the Classic American Dessert by Paul Arguin and Chris TaylorAlthough the authors strongly urge you to follow their recipes and use the same ingredients they do, I didn't have cane syrup so used sorghum syrup, which I had on hand. I bet you could use another liquid sweetener, such as agave nectar, rice syrup, mild honey (although even mild honey can have a strong presence), or Golden syrup, but results and tastes will vary and I think sorghum, or Golden or rice syrup, are best bets.While the Islay Scotch is to give the pie a slight smoky flavor (which I didn't find came through that much in the finished pie...), you could use another liquor; another whiskey or dark rum would be interesting options. To dial up the smoke, serve it with whipped cream flavored with Islay scotch or a scoop of vanilla ice cream with a splash of whisky poured over it.It's also recommended in the book to use a food processor to make the pie filling. If you don't have one, you can use a blender and pulse it very briefly just once or twice, stopping to stir the ingredients in the blender so the almonds get chopped evenly. (Everyone's pulse is different so it may take an additional pulse or two.) Note: You don't want to pulverize the almonds to a powder. You want them in large, discernable pieces. So don't overdo it. The baking and cooking times in the original recipe also differed from mine when I made the pie, which could be attributed to my using an oven that's not well-calibrated at the moment, although I had an oven thermometer in it. So I listed my baking and cooking times, as well as theirs, plus visual clues, which you can use to determine doneness.