It’s almost Summer in Sydney. Not, of course, that Sydney ever languishes in the depths of winter for particularly long. Depth of any form, as seen in seasonal changes, thought provoking artworks, literary tomes etc, is not something that Sydney does well; had Tolstoy lived in Sydney, he’d have been hard pressed to write a beer ad.

As the weather warms up I instinctively begin to desire to spend the majority of my time being idle. The first rays of spring hit me and I emerge from my winter chrysalis of tax returns and credit card bills as a supremely indolent butterfly, languid fluttering in the direction of a deckchair and drink combination (and thus begins the process of re-bloating the credit card debt).

The warmer weather, and the balmy nights in particular, need an alfresco barbecue-y drink. Which is a legitimate description, fuck you very much. With the notable exception of the bloody mary, savoury flavours are unfortunately overlooked in the pantheon of popular cocktails.

I like the tomato in a bloody mary for it’s particular mix of acidity and umami, however I wanted the kick of a short drink, so in this case I’ve based the drink around a gibson. To reduce the volume of liquid I have to add, while retaining the tomato acidity and umami flavours, I’ve used what basically amounts to a concentrated tomato soup with some added Worster sauce.

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Smoked Tomato Gibson
45ml barrel aged gin
10ml Dolin dry french vermouth
10ml smoked tomato concentrate
2 dashes of Worcestershire sauce
1 thin slice of dill pickle (sliced lengthwise)
Small fennel leaf sprig
¼ teaspoon of pickle juice
Tiny amount of sea salt
 

Stir ingredients over ice and serve up (chilled cocktail glass). Garnish with the slice of dill pickle skewered on a toothpick, and the fennel sprig floated on top.

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Smoked Tomato Concentrate
3 Vine ripened tomatoes
4 Roma tomatoes
1 row of cherry tomatoes on the vine
Large onion
2 garlic cloves
1 fennel bulb
¼ cup fresh tarragon
¼ cup flat-leaf parsley
black pepper
1 tsp sea salt
olive oil

Dried jasmine rice and wood chips (for smoking)

Place dry rice and wood chips in the bottom of an uncoated steel/aluminium vessel. Lay a folded piece of alfoil over the top of the rice and wood chip, and set on a medium heat on a barbecue (it’s possible to do the same thing in the bottom of a wok on your stove, but you’ll want to disconnect your smoke detector). Place the cherry tomatoes on the foil, loosely cover the vessel, and check periodically until the tomatoes have started to blacken and wilt. No surprisingly, they should also smell smokey.

Coarsely chop your smoked tomatoes, fresh tomatos, onions, garlic, and fennel. Reserve a few fronds of fennel for a cocktail garnish, but toss the rest – along with onions and garlic – into a large stock pot with olive oil, and soften it all up over medium heat for about 12-15 minutes. Add the herbs towards the end of this period and cover with 4 cups of water. Allow to simmer for 45 minutes.

After the soup is cooked, strain the solids out with cheesecloth, bring back up to a simmer, allow the liquid to reduce by half, then remove from the heat and allow to cool. The concentrate can be used as it, but I have found that a freeze/thaw strain is quite good at removing most of the particulates. Don’t worry about perfect clarification, which would be difficult as tomatos have bugger all gelatin in them. If the cloudiness bothers you, it would be possible to add gelatin or use an egg raft, or even use agar clarification.

It’s worth noting that the strained tomato, onion and fennel solids work quite well as the base for a number of tomato based stews, such as a ragu or bouillabaisse, so chuck them in a container for later.

To increase the shelf life of the clarified soup, and prevent the martini from becoming overly diluted, I have generally added enough of a high proof neutral alcohol (spiritas or a neutral vodka) to take the alcohol content up to around 15%. Alternatively, it freezes very well, and also goes particularly well with a cheese toasty.