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!

Easy Jack'o

The 'Easy Jack'o' was my attempt at creating something that would chance my view on pumpkin - I really dislike... or actually, I don't; I just really find the whole experience really bland and boring. I'm glad to report that pumpkin in cocktails can actually be a surprisingly nice experience, indeed.
Now, as we are approaching May, I have had to take the 'Easy Jack'o' of the Karriere menu on account of pumpkins being out of season. But it was a perfect ingredient for the season, and for a winter-ish kind of cocktail that baked pumpkin-flavor worked beautifully. I'm really sorry to see it go.


The way forward was a bit strange with this cocktail because I knew in my heart that this would never work ( because I really don't like pumkin). It couldn't! I had, however, read something about someone using pumpkin in 'Imbibe' magazine, I think it was, and as it turned out the kitchen at Karriere was planning to use it in one of their dishes. Now that it was readily available I decided to give it a shot.

To even get it ready for human consumption pumpkin has to be prepared, either cooked or baked. I figured I wanted as much of the flavour still in the pumpkin so I baked the thing. - cooking it in water kinda wash out the flavours a little. I had different types of pumpkins that I tried, some tasted exactly as bland and boring as I had imagined. Others, one in particular, kinda surprised me: nice, honey-like sweetness to it that was easy to translate into something drinkable. Finally, settling on Hokkaido ( -not at all scandinavian, I know!), I started out playing with bubbly - had an idea for a champagne cocktail that in my mind just sounded so much better than the actual results I got... (I must just say at this point that I'm not a huge fan of champagne cocktails either - I have tasted very few that really spoke to me so maybe I was just doomed to fail in this endeaveour). I got one decent drink out of it which tasted remarkably like a mimosa -very much orange flavour in it, despite the fact that no orange what-so-ever had been used- but nothing spectacular. The orange'y flavours combined with the inert honey-sweetness kinda got me thinking, though, got me thinking of tequila. I changed goals, going for a margarita-style drink instead...
I had, however, decided on this drink to be one of two sparkling cocktail on the winter menu- the sparkles and the velvety feel of the hokkaido worked nicely and was worthy of an exploration. Beer would be my solution:
::

'Easy Jack'o'

Hokkaido Puré:

1 hokkaido ( ca 250 g after baked)
120 ml agave syrup
60 ml tequila
60 ml water
a pinch of salt

-peel and cut the hokkaido in cubes and bake until good and tender - about 20 minutes at 160 〫c. Puré it with the other ingredients. The hokkaidos I got gave very different results, both in the texture of the puré and flavour so you'll maybe not get it right right away. The only real test is using it in a cocktail - see if it give a nice balance... sorry I can't be more helpfull.

the drink:

40 ml 100 % agave tequila blanco
20 ml lime juice
50 ml puré
30 ml pilsner (I used Carlsberg - worked fine)

::In a shaker, combine the first three ingrediens and shake for about 5 seconds. Over dilution is you enemy here. You need to strain and fine strain it on account that the pumpkin has a weird texture, kinda feel like tiny little pieces of fibers in your mouth... which it probably is. Fine straining it takes that away. Top off with beer and serve on the rocks. Straws, in this case, optional, with a lime wedge on the side.

If you really want to be ambitious - I was planning to be, but never really had the time to effectuate - take the seeds from the pumpkin, roast it lightly. When it's almost done pour a little salted water on there and keep heating until the water has evaporated. Apparently that little trick brings out that pumpkin-flavour from the seeds, and ( as an added bonus) when the water evaporates it leaves the seeds nicely salted. Original plan was to serve a couple of these with the drink. We'll do that next year ;)

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