Monster's Ball

For a very long time I've been playing with garnish as a 'taste modifier' I guess you could call it. The concept is a simple one - serving the drink with a snack of some sort that somehow compliments or changes the drink, either by adding more flavours, by enhancing certain tastes or by effecting the flavours in the drink. In its simplest form it could be serving a nice piece of chocolate with a specific cognac or serving a Tommy's Margarita with a bite of apple instead of the usual lime wedge.
Not in any way revolutionary, I know, but daaamn it can make for some exciting drinks. See, here's the problem with cocktails: there is a very real limit to how many flavours you can put in a single drink before the drink just tastes a mess; before the different tastes drown each other out and everything becomes undistinguishable, muddy and boring. More often than not simple is better. Here the garnish can help us out, though, in as much as it allows us to further add to or manipulate the layers of taste but still maintaining a simplicity and balance in the actual drink. We can do this because the different flavours are served independently.

One good example of this is the Monster's Ball. The Monster's Ball was born out of a strong need for something healthy... not really sure that's what I ended up with but who's counting!: It was winter, I was coming down with something, I could feel it coming. But I had no time to be sick so I did the only thing I knew how to: pulled out my inner witch doctor and started working on a miracle cure.

This recipe calls for large quantities of honey, ginger, Myers rum and fresh lemon juice, all ingredients that supposedly have a positive effect on the body... granted, my mum remains sceptic of my overall faith in the healing powers of rum. I maintain it's a matter of faith! -and seeing that I believe it so strongly I further added to the recipe a splash of Wray and Nephew over proof rum, just in case the illness sneaking up on me was in any way caused by evil spirits having negative hold on my body. Finally, I gave it a splash of ginger beer to make the mixture palatable. That was the Monster's Ball; A big, potent drink with power to breathe life in the sick and kill the living, packed with just as much flavour as it possibly could have without imploding, taste wise. And yet, the Monster's Ball wasn't really complete, taste wise - oh yes, it's a nice enough drink but nothing truly exceptional without the garnish which dawned on me several months later: a spear made from thick liquorice syrup dipped in freeze dried raspberries!

Monster's Ball

50 ml Myers rum
10 ml Wray and Nephew Over proof
15 ml lemon juice
15 ml ginger juice (I just run ginger through a juicer!- you might need to cut it with a little sugar and water)
20 ml honey syrup (honey cut with hot water, 1:1 ratio)
Jamaican ginger beer

- in a shaker and shake with ice. Strain into a double rocks glass. Fill with ice cubes, top with ginger beer (Old Jamaican) - about 40 ml

Garnish: Johan Bülow salmiak liquorice syrup - dip a straw in there. By chilling the paste against an ice cube it will solidify a little and that'll keep it from running. Now, dip it in freeze dried raspberries and put on the drink as garnish.

Enjoy!