A Cool Trick for a Hot Infusion in a Hurry
May 16, 2014
At the Bacardi Legacy Global Cocktail Competition in Moscow, Russia last week I witnessed a crafty trick I thought I'd share.
Within the 7 minute time limit to make his drink, competitor Bert Jachmann of Fabios in Wien, Austria made a hot tea infusion into the base spirit of his drink then cooled it before adding ice to avoid over-diluting the drink.
He brought an electric tea kettle on stage and added Bacardi rum with "Carta Blanca green tea" to it at the beginning. He let that heat and infuse for a few minutes. Then to cool it off without dilution, he poured the hot infused rum over dry ice, before pouring it into his shaker.
That way it would chill without diluting before it hit the regular ice. Clever!
Unfortunately I didn't manage to capture any good pictures of it steaming off when he poured the drink through dry ice - it also had a nice drama factor.
His recipe was:
Soiree Cup
Bert Jachmann
50 ml Bacardi Superior Rum with Carta Blanca Green Tea Infusion
30 ml Muscatel Wine
20 ml Honey Water
2.5 ml Orange Flower Water
10 ml Cream
Shake and strain into a coupette. Garnish with grapes and fresh ground cinnamon.
would that not cause the alcohol to vaporize?
Posted by: ABVsf | May 16, 2014 at 08:52 PM
The alcohol would be cooling rather than heating while the ice is vaporizing so I don't believe so. That said I don't have hands-on dry ice knowledge, just saw it at this contest on stage.
Posted by: Camper English | May 17, 2014 at 08:48 AM
Vaporization would happen in the electric kettle - as we all know, alcohol boils at a lower temp than water. Putting alcohol into a kettle meant to boil water would certainly boil alcohol.
Posted by: ABVSF | May 18, 2014 at 01:10 PM
Right, sorry I thought you were referring to when pouring over dry ice. Yes if he let it boil for a while it certainly would boil off but it was just a 2-3 minute period in the kettle so there wouldn't be too much evaporation yet.
Posted by: Camper English | May 18, 2014 at 01:33 PM