Syrups

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.

Breakfast Old Fashioned

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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Shiver Me Gingers (Port Light)

As mortal creatures, bound to the inexorable march of time, the loss of the things we hold dear is an unavoidable reality. Though we may rationalise this as a natural part of the fabric of our lives, nothing can quite prepare us for the terrible realisation that a treasured relationship has come to an end. And so it was when stuntalbatross was greeted by the news that his passionfruit syrup had almost completely succumbed to a permanent low tide.

We’re great believers in the ancient Persian aphorism “if you’ve got to lose something, then you might as well be directly involved in it’s demise, and that demise might as well feature post-war, faux polynesian kitsch”, so tiki drinks involving the remaining syrup were obviously in order.

Unfortunately, we were rumless, ruling out many of the simple options, and leaving the syrup unguarded while we obtained some didn’t seem wise. We also couldn’t be arsed walking to the shop. Thankfully, however, we had bourbon at our disposal. This, plus a little research, led us to the Port Light.

First concocted in 1961 in a place sacred to tiki cocktails (Ohio), the Port Light is an interesting interpretation of a whiskey sour. For ours, we omitted the grenadine and replaced its volume with additional passionfruit syrup as we felt it sufficient to sweeten the drink, and wanted to enjoy the bourbon/passionfruit combination. This unfortunately meant the cocktail wasn’t red, and hence was no longer suitable for use as a regulation port side navigation light, though the fact that it was an alcoholic beverage rather that an IP rated water proof lamp may have already eliminated that as an option.

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Not Quite Port Light

45ml Bourbon (we used Maker’s Mark)
30ml Passionfruit syrup
(for a traditional Port Light use 15ml Passionfruit syrup and 15ml Grenadine)
30ml Lemon juice

Shake all ingredients over ice, pour into an Old Fashioned glass full of crushed ice. Garnish with a sprig of mint.
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Armed with the knowledge that bourbon and passionfruit mix extremely well, we tried our hand at a taller drink. Mint and ginger both play nicely around passionfruit, and are right at home in a summer cocktail.

Port-light-variation

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Shiver Me Gingers

45ml Bourbon
30ml Passionfruit syrup
Handful mint leaves
Ginger beer (to taste)

Stir bourbon, passionfruit syrup and a couple of mint leaves with ice until well chilled, then strain into a large Old Fashioned glass filled with crushed ice. Top with ginger beer, garnish with a sprig of mint.
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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.

passionfruit

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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

Spiced_orange_syrup3

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.

Spiced orange2

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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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Chamomile & Lavender Syrup

Let’s kick things off with a simple syrup recipe. Syrups are excellent way of carrying all manner of flavors into a variety of cocktails. In this case we were trying to develop a syrup that could add a distinctly floral note to some cocktail concepts we’d been playing around with. The process we’ve opted for is to create a tisane from the flowers, which helps to draw out some of the more bitter vegetable characteristics in addition to the floral aroma, which we then strain and add cardamon and orange peel, before boiling again. The cardamon has a floral, lemon-peppery flavor which works particularly well with the flowers.

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Chamommile & Lavender Syrup

4 Tsp Dried camomile
4 Tbs Dried lavender
1 ½ Tbs Cardamom pods
⅔ Orange worth of fresh peel
2 Cups of sugar
2 Cups of water

Steep camomile and lavender in a small saucepan with 2 cups of boiling water. Briefly bring back to the boil (30s – 1m) with the herbs still infusing, and then remove from the heat and strain. Bring back to a boil and add the cardamom and peel and allow to simmer for a few minutes. Add the sugar and remove the peel, stirring until dissolved. Leave the cardamon to steep for at least 20 minutes as the mixture cools, before removing.
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