Vermouth

Smoked Tomato Gibson

Smoked-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.

The Chesterfield

Optins-for-Chesterfield_1

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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Orange Borough

Orange_borough

Working until 11pm, sorting through piles of bills, days that end in “y”; there are those stressful occasions in life which deserve (require?) a relaxing nightcap. Though you’d be forgiven for wanting to empty half a bottle of bourbon into a novelty stein when such a situation arises, this approach lacks the calming ritual that the preparation of a fine libation can provide. It also encourages the kind of drinking that causes people to be compelled to stop drinking and start attending weekly meetings.

Better then to mix yourself something delicious. My preference is usually for something along the lines of a negroni or a manhattan, but I’m also partial, particularly in the winter months, to something sweet and spicy such as a mulled wine or glögg. Here I’ve taken the basic structure of a Bronx (with a nod to a couple of the other Boroughs), but increased the sweetness and bitterness by swapping the juice for the spiced citrus syrup from the previous post, increasing the quantity of red vermouth, and adding a dash of bitters. For the gin, I’d advise something fairly bold, as there are a fair few other flavors at work, and one can vary the sugar content by playing with different vermouths and the ratio of sweet to dry.

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Orange Borough

45ml gin
30ml sweet (red) vermouth
15ml dry vermouth
15ml spiced citrus syrup (link)
Dash Agnostura bitters

Combine ingredients with ice in a large glass or cocktail shaker and stir, then strain into a chilled old fashioned glass over a large ice cube. Serve with a twist of orange peel.
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