Smoked Cocktails: Part 2

Well, the smoked cocktails experiments continue. As I described in my last post, I have been struggling to refine the introduction of smoke into cocktails, and I am now here to post my results. Three major ways of introducing smoke into cocktails without the use of liquid smoke have been discovered and tested. This post will discuss smoked fruit, but please check back to read up on the uses of smoked tea next time. The best will be saved for the end however; I’ll show you how to do an air infusion (for lack of a better term) using an aerator and other common aquarium supplies. I know what you’re thinking. Are you sure the only smoke referred to here involved cocktails? And yes, I assure you that these concepts were tested free of any drug-related activity. There was of course, a lot of tasting involved. Now, I am sure that there are other methods for introducing smoke flavors into cocktails, so I’m not claiming these categories to be exhaustive. But, I think that the methods described herein are pretty well documented and the air infusion is especially creative if I do say so myself. First, however, let’s talk fruit.

If you remember my previous post, you will recall that the strawberries that were used were far too smoky and overwhelmed anything that they touched, including my fingers. There were a few problems with these strawberries that needed to be corrected:

1. Shorter smoking time
2. Different type of wood
3. Wrong Fruit

Initially, the strawberries were smoked for an hour. This was far too long. Even at thirty minutes, the strawberries were still too cigar-like. Fifteen minutes was about the right time for the strawberries in our smoker, which uses red oak and maple wood. Yet, even fifteen minutes, while lowering the smoke flavor to a reasonable level, still left a domineering smoked element in drinks. The wood was just too strong and didn’t allow for any balance in the cocktails. It left a lingering finish on every drink I made, with nothing to respond from the drink after the smoked finish, the previously noted description of “drinking a cigarette” was still far too accurate. I was going to try some different wood, but then it occurred to me that trying to force strawberries to work might have just been a bad idea. I was certainly going to try other fruits already, but I just wanted to use the strawberry because I had before and could note changes with different methods more easily. I should have let the fruit go long ago, as the strawberry was far too similar to Roger Clemens: you can inject flavor into it easily, but any trace of the integrity of the strawberry will be lost forever.

Here are some better candidates for smoking:

1. Pineapple
2. Melons
3. Lemons
4. Oranges
5. Grapefruit
6. Cucumber
7. Tomatoes
8. Watermelon

Avoid these items when smoking for cocktails:

1. Mangoes
2. Limes
3. STRAWBERRIES!

As you can see, smoking fruit and such has a lot of possibilities. Mainly, try and use fruit that has a soft center but a thicker skin. My conclusion is that the denser or less permeable skin protects the fruit from losing flavor. The smoke will get through; the aim is to create a flavored fruit that still maintains it original elements. Mangoes an strawberries just let too much through and become smoke bombs. I thought the limes would work like any of the other citrus, but for whatever reason the limes’ flavor changed drastically. Perhaps, the lime batch received too much heat. Cooking citrus can really alter its taste after all. Oh well, more tasting to be had later; for now, limes are on the avoid list.

My favorite was by far lemons. Maybe it was just easier to see the connection to widespread cocktails using lemon juice, but I thought the lemons were amazing. They were smoked for about two hours and demonstrated a present, but yielding, smoke flavor. I wanted to make virtually every cocktail using lemon juice with them initially, but ultimately, I found the lemons to work especially well with gin. The herbal flavors of gin paired really well with the smoke. I found this interesting because charred flavors, such as those found in bourbon, are never really used in combination with the juniper in gin. The two however, work very well together. Smoke some lemons and try them in your favorite gin/lemon recipe, but start off with a basic Tom Collins so you can see how they work:

Smoked Tom Collins

2 oz Junipero Gin
1 oz Smoked Lemon Juice
3/4 oz Simple Syrup

Shake and strain into a collins glass filled with ice. Top with soda water and garnish with a smoked lemon wheel.

The Tom Collins is a good one to start with because right off the bat, you get to taste smoke flavors in conjunction with carbonation. This was a mouth-shocking experience to me at first and very cool.

Well, there you have it: smoke installment number one. Next time, I am going to discuss the use of Lapsang Souchong, a Chinese smoked black tea, which also appears St. George Spirit’s Qi Tea Liqueur. Tea has also been a recent popular trend in cocktails, but I personally haven’t seen much use of Lapsang Souchong outside of the St. George product. It makes a great addition of flavor to cocktails. Be sure to check back later in the week for information on this smoked chapter of the series. Until then, what are your thoughts on smoked fruit, particularly lemons? Any questions or suggestions?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 6:01 am. It is filed under Cocktails and tagged with Cocktails, Mixers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.