Ingredients and Techniques

Smoked Tomato Gibson

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.

Three Late Night Classics

I’ve posted before about stress begetting nightcaps. Most people who work in an office, at one time or another, are stuck there post 9:30pm, working on something contemptible. Usually when that happens to me, I find myself hissing an Arya Stark style list of people responsible for my inability to relocate to a couch.

Alternatively however, I sometimes find myself up late, working on something interesting. This can happen at work, though I suspect it’s more common for people working on self driving cars at Google X than, say, for junior auditors at big accounting firms. I find it happens quite a bit at home; you’ve got a great idea, and you’re in the mood let your imagination soar like an eagle of genius on an updraft of inspiration, effortlessly floating above an ocean of tenuous metaphor.

When this trifecta of awesome occurs (it’s a trifecta; I will not tolerate people pointing that it isn’t), you need a drink that will fuel your flight. Assuming you made it through my protective barrier of wankery, below you will find the Functional Alchemist twist on three classic cocktails that we find rather perfectly compliment an evening of artistic endeavour.

Tip: Dispose of any poetry you write before heading to bed, and logout of Facebook before your first drink. Neither bare reckoning in the cold light of day. Also, if your style of inspiration involves dramatic hand gestures, use paper rather than your laptop to document your thoughts.

Hanky Panky

The Hanky Panky is a classic from Harry Craddock’s Savoy Cocktail Book. It is attributed to Ada Coleman (probably the most prominent female entry in mixology’s lopsidedly male history), who was the head bartender at the Savoy from 1903 to 1923; a remarkable feat given the time. The drink is, in it’s original form, one of the finest drinks I’ve ever tasted.

Here I’ve toyed slightly with the recipe to give the drink a more citrus-y character. The Maidenii is a spectacular semi-sweet vermouth which pairs the usual vermouth suspects with hints of strawberry gum and wattle. For the gin I’ve specified a dry London, though this drink highlights the interplay between botanicals, so any number of interesting new gins might do well. I particularly recommend the Botanist or Four Pillars.

This recipe calls for slightly more Fernet Branca than the classic two dashes, though Fernet bottles don’t have a drip insert so a “dash” could have be just about anything. I’ve also added some Cointreau, which adds a touch of sweetness and highlights the light peel notes in the vermouth. Note that they are both fairly dosage specific – the best bet is to use a 15ml jigger and try to fill it half and half with each, erring on the fernet side.

35ml dry gin

30ml Maidenii Classic Vermouth

8ml Fernet Branca

7ml Cointreau

Combine ingredients and stir over ice, then serve in a cocktail glass with a twist of lemon.

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Sazerac

No need to be overly descriptive here: This is what happens when you leave ordinary people in possession of herbs and fire. The blazer influence is clear and so it should be. You’d be stupid not to notice, and for that matter, to disagree.

I’ve avoided giving volumes here, as you are essentially just working on flavouring the base spirit (and can make it in any ratio you prefer), but should you choose to go with around two shots (60ml) of Rye, 10ml of simple syrup is a good starting point. The wash should coat the glass and give you something to flame, and a dash is formally given at 1/6th of a teaspoon (slightly less than 1ml), though in the case of the absinthe perhaps a touch more is needed. As always, experimentation is key.

Rye

Absinthe wash

Perchaudes Bitters

Thyme

Simple syrup

Wash an old fashioned glass in absinthe, coating the thyme. Set alight and burn off, then block the top of the glass to put out the flames. Stir rye, simple syrup and a dash more absinthe over ice, and add dash or two of bitters to taste. Serve in washed and flamed glass. Garnish with a crushed and lightly flamed slice of lemon peel and a flamed bay laurel leaf. Traditionally this drink is served without ice, however the glass will be warmish due to the flaming, so I leave that up to you.

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Daiquiri

As an idiotic teenager making my initial forays into the world of booze, I was repulsed by daiquiris; I didn’t have bad taste, I was just stupid enough to confuse the pre-mixed, sugar and fruit monstrosities floating around with something resembling the legitimate form. Here, the ratios shown are designed to hit that sweet spot between the warmth and depth of the rum (it seems like a lot, just have some faith), the acidity from the lime, with just a touch of sweetness as a level. The coconut syrup brings a rich, if subtle, caramel note to the drink – and what’s more tropical than coconut?

75ml spiced rum

30ml freshly squeezed lime juice (if fresh lime juice is unavailable, substitute everything and make something that’s not a daiquiri)

15ml coconut sugar syrup

Combine over ice and shake well (a Boston shaker will do nicely). Serve up, in a cocktail glass.

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Flemish Punch

It’s autumn in Sydney, which means spring in Europe, and for a bunch of loopy antipodean road cycling fanatics like ourselves, it’s classics season, heralding the beginning of 6 months of periodic sleep deprivation. The combination of a cool autumnal breeze and late night visions of the Ardenne forests need something long, flavoursome, and easily replenished, so here I present a version of a lambic based punch. (Lambic beers are, of course, more closely associated with the cobbles than the forested hills of the Ardennes or the… ummm… Italy of the Giro, so this particular recipe might have been more timely had I published it a month or so ago.)

It’s best to think of beer cocktails in the same way you might a martini. Different gins will drastically alter the character of a martini and the same rule applies to beers. Experimentation is key. In keeping with this, I have named the brands of the beers I’ve used, but it’s worth noting that if you live outside of Sydney you’ll find the Batch Brewing Alice wheat particularly hard to come by.

The Batch Brewing beer is a little stronger than your average wheat and I’ve found that, if you are using a lighter flavoured wheat beer, adding a touch of an IPA will give the desired robustness to the bitter beer profile. In this kind of recipe a witbier is often used to accompany the lambic (Hoegaarden for instance), and in that instance I definitely recommend bolstering the punch with 100-200ml of something fresh and bitter.

A beer brewed on Tasmanian Galaxy hops would be particularly good for this purpose, as the strong passionfruit and citrus notes will add to the fruit flavour, as well as increasing the bitterness.

There are a number of lambic sangrias/punches floating around, but I’ve opted for a higher alcohol content than might otherwise be found. A solid slug of a dry-ish gin is added for a fresh herbal juniper note, I’ve added some of the maraschino preservation liquid too, which gives it a touch of extra sweetness and a Krieg-esque aftertaste.

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Flemish Punch

330ml Lindeman’s Framboise
300ml Batch Brewing Alice wheat beer
70ml maraschino cherry preservation liquid
90ml dry gin
70ml Cointreau
Juice of half a lemon
Orange slices
Mixed berries

Mix beers, gin, Cointreau, maraschino preservation liquid and lemon. Adjust to taste and stir over ice. Add fruit and stir again, being careful not to break up any soft berries.

Maraschino Cherries

Maraschino-Cherries

I like aviations. The cocktail, obviously. No one likes spending 10 hours shoehorned in a gravity-defying aluminium can. That sherbet-y combination of lemon juice, maraschino liqueur, and creme de violette, bolstered with a fresh juniper kick, is pretty much my idea of a perfect summer’s evening. It is also, more than any other, the drink that rediscovered the joys of the maraschino cherry and for that I owe it, and the general resurgence of cocktail culture, a tremendous debt of gratitude.

Maraschino cherries were originally marasca cherries preserved in maraschino liqueur, a local delicacy of the Dalmatian region in Croatia. On the off chance the area is drawing a blank, just think of King’s Landing in Game of Thrones. They became quite popular in the States in the late 19th century, declined in popularity in the early 20th, then became completely illegal during prohibition. This killed off the original recipe and saw it replaced with the fluoro red candied abomination.

There are few things on Earth that I despise more than imitation maraschino cherries, yet for the entire first decade of my drinking life, I was incessantly tortured with them; bar after bar would ruin my manhattan, and as such my day, with those rancid morsels. Have you ever seen a grown man break down with tears when served a manhattan? Well, this is exactly what you would have witnessed in those dark times (except that “grown man” implies a level of maturity I strive to never achieve).

Virtually every cocktail blog on earth has published a maraschino cherry recipe, but we’re big believers in following the crowd and mercilessly tormenting anyone who stands out, so we figured we should get ours up pronto. Also, we really like maraschino cherries, and they feature in a few upcoming recipes. Actually, that’s the main reason.

Unfortunately it’s almost impossible to get a suitable sour cherry in Sydney, so what we’ve come up with uses sweet cherries with a slightly modified approach. We steep the cherries for a day or two first, and then briefly simmer them with simple syrup and lemon juice. This might seem a little unnecessary, but the steeping increases the booze permeation of the cherries, and creates an enjoyable contrast between the cherries and the sweet/sour preservation liquid.

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Maraschino Cherries

500g pitted cherries
1.5 cup maraschino liqueur
1 cup water
¾ cup sugar
Juice of 1 lemon

Steep pitted cherries in a maraschino liqueur for three days, then remove the cherries and reserve the liquid. Bring sugar and water to the boil, reduce to a simmer and add the cherries, simmering for no more than 3 minutes. Remove from the heat and add the juice of one lemon, followed by the reserved maraschino liqueur, and allow to cool slightly before bottling.

The Chesterfield

For the past few months I’ve been stuffing around with the concept and framework for a web app I’d dreamed up. This sort of thing requires a bit of competitor research and, in an unfortunate but (let’s face it) not unexpected turn of events, today I discovered that I’d been totally and utterly beaten to the mark by another startup. Hell, their UI even used the same colour scheme I was going for.

Now, if this was Fast Company or the Harvard Business Review that story would be the prelude to some uplifting crap about not giving up. This is a fucking drinks blog, however, and when life gets you down, we’re all about ditching shit and going to the pub. It’s a universal experience; you try, the universe politely tells you to get fucked, you recalibrate over a drink.

The question, then, is simple: what drink? Well, we’ve suffered said metaphorical latex fist, so I reckon something strong, and perhaps smoky and oaked. With this in mind I’ve opted for something along the lines of a Boulevardier (a negroni with bourbon rather than gin). I’ve sweetened and oaked it further by omitting the campari in favour of a traditional bitters, and by adding a pedro ximenez sherry rather than a sweet vermouth.

As a base I’ve opted for a Dickel 12, a Tennessee sour mash which has a distinct smoky finish not often found in American whiskeys. After toying with the sherry and bitters I felt the drink could use a herbal kick, so I’ve added some Dolin dry vermouth to the mix. The earl grey ice cube makes another appearance here, as I wanted a touch of bitter citrus to build through the drink as it dilutes, without using a peel garnish.

In place of an American whiskey, a lightly smoked island Scotch would work well here, (though perhaps not a full blooded Islay). Talisker would be an excellent choice, as would the pedro ximenez oaked Lagavulin Distillers Edition.

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The Chesterfield

45ml Dickel 12 Tennessee whiskey
15ml pedro ximenez sherry
15ml Dolin dry vermouth
1 Dash Fey Brothers Traditional Bitters
1 Large earl grey ice cube

Stir whiskey, sherry, vermouth and bitters with ice until well chilled, then pour into an old fashioned glass over the earl grey ice cube (refer here for cube instructions).
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Auvergne Negroni

The negroni was born, illegitimate and out of wedlock, after a sordid affair between an Italian nobleman and an americano – a coupling thankfully free of his Florentine member experiencing the difficulties of navigating an awkwardly narrow bottle neck. Count Camillo Negroni, assuming my wild extrapolations from scant historical data are correct, was quite the booze hound. Only a seasoned imbiber would order a pleasant, if mild, aperitif and ask the barkeep to replace the non-alcoholic mixer with a healthy slug of gin. If he wasn’t a Count by birth that one deft manoeuvre would have assured his place amongst the nobility.

The origin story of our drink is less interesting, and much less manly. Briefly summated, we found some seemingly obscure gentian liqueur, Pagès Gentiane d’Auvergne, in a local bottle shop and thought its bittersweet, herbal flavour appropriate for a negroni. Riveting stuff.

Gentian has a strong vegetal and woody flavour that is very hard to mistake for anything else. This liqueur is potently bitter, and vibrantly yellow, so we lowered it’s volume relative to the gin and vermouth. Rosso Antico, which you might remember from such decades as the 1970s, provides ample sweetness in the fight against the bitterness of the gentian, though it is far from the most complex of sweet vermouths (technically it’s a herbal dessert wine, not a vermouth). Dubonnet, classed as a quinquina due to its cinchona bark/quinine content, was included in the mix to strengthen the vermouth side of the drink, and because quinine and gentian combine extraordinarily well (one of the many reasons Lillet and Suze work together so nicely in a white negroni).

The resulting negroni is complex and, like a Terminator timeline, difficult to describe in a rational sense. There is tension and confusion but, ultimately, resolution and great satisfaction.

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Auvergne Negroni

45ml gin
30ml Rosso Antico
15ml Dubonnet
15ml Pages Gentian d’Auvergne
Slice of dried orange peel

Mixed over a large ice cube in an old fashioned glass, garnish with a slice of dried orange peel.
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Breakfast Old Fashioned

Tea based cocktails are in vogue in the artisan cocktail world right now. The factors that cause certain ingredients, styles, or methodologies to leap to the forefront of cool in a subjective art form are complicated, but my extensive research into the rise of this phenomenon has revealed that it can be traced to shut up, that’s why. Irrespective of the original provenance of the idea, the ability of tea to elevate a cocktail is almost as dramatic as its ability to plug the crumpet hole of a whining Englishman (#theAshes).

This post was meant to go up yesterday morning, when pointing out that I enjoy a strong cup of black tea on a lazy Sunday morning would have made for a thematically consistent introduction to the recipe. Instead, I’ll content myself with insulting the English and noting that standing over one’s tea while it brews is a time honoured method of winding down the office clock on a Monday afternoon. (If I was to design a cocktail for a Monday afternoon it’d be based around intravenous vodka, so let’s pretend it’s Sunday morning.)

Having skipped the background research and buggered up the theme, let’s move on to the drink itself. In my opinion, the bitter tannins of black tea combine particularly well with an aged rum or a whiskey, so we’ve used the basic structure of an old fashioned as a base. The old fashioned is a marvellously simple drink; just a base spirit, a sugar syrup, and a bittering agent mixed over ice. In effect, it’s a sort of post-mix herbal liqueur.

I’ve used Jim Beam rye whiskey as the base. Before you say anything, to make their standard white label Jim Beam’s distillers have clearly bored down into the caverns of Hades and drawn water straight from the River Styx. In the pantheon of American inventions, it shares a shelf with Fred Phelps and the Cadillacs of the 1980s. Their rye, however, is pretty damn good for the price.

To introduce the tea slowly, and change the character of the drink as it’s consumed, we’ve frozen the tea into a large ice cube. After several different teas were bandied about we settled on earl grey (we’re using a Fortnum and Mason loose leaf) for its citrus notes. To further enhance the bitter citrus character, and the breakfast credentials, our sweetener is syrup made from dissolved marmalade. As always with syrups, I advise that you use the measurements as a guide only and experiment to find your preferred sweetness.

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Breakfast Old Fashioned

60mL Jim Beam Rye
~20ml of Marmalade Syrup – see method for ingredients
2 dashes Fey Brother’s Original Bitters
1 large earl grey tea ice cube

The ice cubes will need to be prepared ahead of time; make a medium strength earl grey tea (ideally with a decent quality loose leaf tea), leave to cool to room temperature, and divide into an extra large ice cube tray.

Put 1 heaped tablespoon of marmalade into a small, heat resistant vessel (a ceramic mug or lipped borosilicate measuring cup) and dissolve it by pouring over 2 tablespoons of boiling water, making a simple syrup. The pectin in the marmalade can be quite resistant to dissolving, so you may find yourself needing to stir it for a while, and/or give it a brief spin in the microwave.

Once dissolved, pass the liquid through a strainer to remove the fine bits of peel you find in most decent marmalades. It is possible to leave the peel in, as it is quite tasty, but leaves the drink with a slightly odd mix of textures. Different marmalades have different sugar contents, so taste as you go to get it right. It is worth noting that you will find it easier to get the balance of marmalade to water in the syrup exactly right if you make a larger batch (the recipe makes about enough for two to three drinks).

Mix the rye, bitters and marmalade syrup over ice and pour into large, stemless tumbler. Add the earl grey ice cube and a twist of orange or grapefruit peel (fresh or dried) and swirl to combine.
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Passionfruit & Mint Syrup

Passionfruit, for those of us living in warmer climates, is a staple of summer. The interior of the fruit is vibrant, aromatic, and delicious; rather lucky as the exterior of the fruit has the appearance of a pickled testicle. The rich sweetness of the flesh is balanced by a tart acidity, making the fruit both versatile and adept at enhancing other flavours – it is equally at home in a bourbon or gin based beverage, and certainly knows its way around a stein full of tiki-based pleasure.

When making chutneys or jams, a combination of cooked and fresh fruit often produces the fullest flavour, so that process was opted for here. In the face of so much sugar and passionfruit the mint is rather subtle, it adds complexity and serves to highlight the flavour of the fruit. The amount of mint can be adjusted to suit your taste or intended use, or omitted entirely if you so desire.

It’s worth noting that our most recent batch of this syrup lasted about 3 days in the fridge, on account of it making a particularly excellent cordial. I strongly recommend a splash of it with soda water over ice, plus a few fresh mint leaves to garnish. If you suffer from a medieval European suspicion of water on it’s own (don’t you? Shouldn’t you?), you could always “disinfect” it with a generous splash of gin.

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Passionfruit & Mint Syrup

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
½ cup passionfruit juice & seeds (roughly 6-8 passion fruit) plus a few additional passionfruit
Handful fresh mint leaves

Mix water, sugar, and the ½ cup of passion fruit in a pan. Place over a medium high heat, make sure the sugar dissolves, and bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer then remove from the heat after 1-2 minutes. Stir in the flesh from the remaining passionfruit and the mint leaves, cover, and let stand for a few hours. Strain out the solids, then bottle.
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Spiced Citrus Syrup

Piercing winter temperatures, hefty coats, and stiff, dark drinks are a magnificent combination – the equally pleasing antithesis to white sand, tiki drinks, and cocktail umbrellas. An Old Fashioned or a Negroni – any drink of that ilk – is ideal for keeping the cold at bay, and pairs nicely with a spiced citrus syrup.

It is high summer here and, as such, a lot of our drinking has been built around clear spirits. In thinking that we would begin experimenting with some bourbon it seemed a spiced citrus syrup would be a useful ingredient to have on hand. The spices we used were selected to offer a combination of warmth, aroma, and depth (a necessary yet cumbersome descriptor). The grapefruit zest and amchur (dried green mango) provide a touch of acidity and bitterness, respectively, rounding the profile of the syrup. If you have a penchant for a particular spice alter the ingredients at will, though try to maintain the balance of spice to citrus and sweetness.

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Spiced Citrus Syrup

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1 orange, cut into 5mm slices
½ cup grapefruit zest
1 cinnamon stick
2 star anise
1 clove
1 tbsp Amchur powder
1 Tbsp cardamom pods
1.5 Tsp coriander seeds

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan, bring to a boil and ensure all sugar has dissolved. Reduce heat and simmer for another 15-20 minutes, or until spiced to your tastes. Remove orange slices (reserve for another use, or simply eat), strain out solids, then bottle.
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An unnecessarily thorough guide to drying citrus

Many and varied are the uses for dried citrus: it serves a multitude of delicious culinary functions; finds a home in tea, desserts & syrups; apparently performs decorative and homeopathic tasks (neither of which are in any way endorsed by us); almost certainly has a role in a number of fetish activities that we definitely know absolutely nothing about; and, most relevantly, flavours cocktails and liqueurs.

If, like us, you’re the kind of person who likes a good drink and has the motivation to faff about in the kitchen making some of your own ingredients, drying your own citrus is a sensible idea. We began drying orange zest to flavour the amaro and vermouth we’re making (updates on their progress at a later date), though soon discovered it’s also very useful for flavouring simple syrups.

Drying fruit serves the two main purposes of concentrating flavour and significantly increasing longevity. The technique is remarkably simple and, relative to purchasing pre-dried goods, it’s very cost effective. The methods and recipes below can be adapted to any citrus you might fancy.

Zest

Start with the best quality fruit you can source, then thoroughly wash. Peel the orange in whatever way you find easiest until left with only the coloured skin – pith will increase the bitterness. If you haven’t done so in a while, you might want to clean your oven before you begin. The zest will be in the oven for hours and you don’t want it taking on the aroma of cremated pork fat. If you can’t leave your oven door permanently ajar open it periodically to allow moisture, and pleasant citrusy aromas, to escape.

There can be a significant disparity in the drying time across different batches. Some of ours were fully dried and crisp to the touch after 3 hours, while others required up to six – just keep an eye on them after a couple of hours. You’ll know it’s done when it’s reduced in size by about 50%, and is reasonably brittle. Dry, really.

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Dried Orange Zest

2-3 Good quality oranges, washed (makes approximately 1 loosely packed cup)

If you have a sharp vegetable peeler, run it over the oranges. This should leave you with only the zest. If not, cut slices off with a knife, then remove all the white pith with a paring or serrated knife.

Preheat your oven to 60C. Place orange zest on a wire rack in the top third of the oven. Either leave the door slightly ajar, or open it periodically.

Dry for 3-6 hours, or until fully dehydrated and crisp. Store in an airtight container.
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Fruit

There are a number of ways you can go about drying slices of the fruit: unadulterated (sliced, zest and pith left on the flesh); skinned (sliced, zest and pith removed); and flavoured (dried with herbs and/or spices).

The unadulterated version is, unsurprisingly, the simplest. Cut the fruit into 5mm slices, then dry in the same manner as the zest. Slices will take longer than zest to dry given the increased thickness and moisture content, somewhere in the order of 8-10 hours. We used some of these whole slices as a flavouring agent for our initial batch of vermouth.

Drying slices without the zest and pith produces an end result with a sweeter, less complex flavour. All citrus survives only very briefly once the zest has been removed, so this is a good method for using any zested fruit you don’t plan on eating immediately. The best use for these is simply applying them directly to your face – they are essentially delicious orange chips.

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Dried Orange Chips

1 Orange makes 6-10 chips, depending on size, so adjust to how many you require

Slice the top and bottom off each orange, then sit flat and cut away all remaining skin and pith. Cut the orange crossways into 5mm slices.

Preheat your oven to 60C. Space out the orange slices on a wire rack and dry until completely crisp, approximately ten hours. Store in an airtight container.
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You can be quite creative with what you use to flavour as citrus pairs well with a broad range of herbs and spices. Infused citrus helps make a great batch of mulled wine or punch. With herbs, spread them out in the bottom of a baking tray to form a bed for the slices, then drizzle with a little olive oil. Lightly seasoning the citrus prior to drying will highlight any herby goodness that they absorb. If you’re opting to spice the fruit first toast and grind any whole spices, then rub over the flesh with a little olive oil prior to drying.

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Rosemary Infused Orange Slices

1 Orange makes 6-10 slices, so adjust to how many you require

Slice the top and bottom off each orange, then cut each orange crossways into 5mm slices.

Preheat your oven to 60C. Spread a sizeable bunch of rosemary over the base of a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil. Top with the oranges, lightly season, then cook until completely dried, approximately ten hours. Store in an airtight container.
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