Alcademics.com

Bottle-Fermented Cocktails in San Diego

I know that several people are attempting bottle-fermented cocktails. Here's one program from Jeff Josenhans at the US Grant Hotel in San Diego that's about to come online. 

THE US GRANT's award-winning Mixologist, Jeff Josenhans, has taken his mad-scientist cocktail crafting skills to a new level: straight to the basement of the hotel. After many hours of experimenting with various bottling processes, Josenhans is the first mixologist to successfully craft bottle conditioned cocktails combining the beer and champagne method of fermentation.

Launching as "Cocktails Sur Lie," (Sur lie is a French wine-making term that means having been rested on its yeast), he has combined the highly complex (and rarely attempted) process of the champagne method with the brewer's method, adding yeast to the bottle and allowing the bottle pressure to create carbonation, then spirits and sugar are mixed in according to the champagne method while the hopping process adds the brewer's flare. 

A sneak preview of the Cocktails Sur Lie are currently on the week-long Autumn Mixology Dinner menu (names and ingredients below) but you'll soon be able to find the new flavors of 'Cocktails Sur Lie' on the Grant Grill's January cocktail menu. 

  -"Mule in a Bottle" made from Garden Flower Infused Vodka, Ginger, Rock Candy Sugar, California Hops and Champagne Yeast.  

-"Smokin’ Pumpkin"  (a take on his current seasonal cocktail featured on the Food Network, the Smashing Pumpkin) – Pumpkin Infused Rum, Allspice Dram, Applewood Smoked Coconut Sugar, Dash Laphroiag 15 yrs, Saffron and Vanilla (unhopped), Ale Yeast

Solid Liquids: Techniques

The next step in the Solid Liquids project is to look at the various methods people are using to dehydrate liqueurs down to sugars. After searching the interwebz, here are some techniques I found. 

I don't think the original DrinkBoy forums are online anymore- at least I can't find them- but that's where this technique first came to my attention several years ago. Bartenders in Australia were dehydrating Campari and other liqueurs and making powders out of them.  

Oven Baking

Pour the liqueur on a baking pan, perhaps with a silicone matt on it (for easier removal of solids) and bake at a low temperature overnight. Damon Dyer wrote that his initial method (copied from the Australians) was:

"The process as I learned it was to pour the Campari into a shallow baking sheet, then slowly bake in the oven at low, low, low heat. The Campari eventually loses its water and alcohol, and solidifies. Then it's simply a matter of scraping the solid Campari "brick" off the baking sheet, crushing it into a powder, and enjoying a cocktail.

"However, the revised process that Donbert came up with [see below] is much more efficient."

Microwaving

Way back in 2007, Don Lee took up the issue (in this thread on eGullet), and remembering a tip from the French Laundry Cookbook, he dried out liqueurs in the microwave. He was able to boil Campari down to a sludge in about 4 minutes, then further pulverize this into a poweer.

On refining the technique, his observations were:

• In the initial cooking stage, the alcohol is boiling off so the boiling is quite violent. Use short heating bursts during this stage.
• Also use short bursts of heat at the end, because then the thick sugary liquid can caramelize if you're not careful. 
• "For Maraschino (Luxardo) I had to use 20 sec intervals for the first 1.5 minutes, then could let it go for 3 mins straight before going back to 20 sec intervals until 303.5F was reached. The result when cooled is an easily removable "puck" of Maraschino." 
• Using this method, Damon Dyer said he had success dehydrating Torani Amer, Yellow Chartreuse, Peychaud's, Herbsaint, Maraschino, and Canton Ginger.

Liquid Nitrogen

Douglas Williams of Liquid Alchemy consulting used liquid nitrogen to make solid Campari. This is really frozen Campari, and thus will melt again. So it's not a useful technique for my purposes.

But in any case, check out this video of it happening:

 Williams told me about some other ways to get alcohol into solid form - sometimes without burning off the booze. I am not completely clear on how it works, but apparently you can use tapioca malodextrin and that will bond with anything fatty. This technique can apparently be used to trap booze into a solid form. 

I doubt I'll have time to get into the molecular mixology stuff during the duration of this project, but it would be fun to try. 

The Solid Liquids Project is sponsored by Skyy Spirits. Content created and owned by Camper English for Alcademics. For the project index, click on the logo above or follow this link. 

The Molecular DNA of Classic Cocktails

I wrote up this blog post over at Tales Blog about one of my favorite talks at this year's Tales of the Cocktail, The Molecular DNA of Classic Cocktails. It was a great talk about how drinks like the Ramos Gin Fizz, Blue Blazer, and Clover Club are all classic cocktails that played with format and presentation, analogous to today's gelatinous drinks and foams.