handmade ingredients
RICH SIMPLE SYRUP
All recipes here use a ‘Rich’ Simple Syrup. This simply means a sugar syrup that contains 2 parts of sugar and 1 part of water.
Some bartenders prefer a 1:1 syrup, using equal parts of sugar and water. However, much as this really comes down to personal preference, we also think that there’s a good reason for using rich simple syrup, as it will add less water to your batch, which in some cases will be better for preservation and fitting more batch in your bottle!
STEP 1: Use a measuring cup and add 2 cups of sugar to a pan.
STEP 1 : Use a measuring cup and add 2 cups of sugar to a pan.
STEP 2 : Using the same cup add 1 cup of water to the same pan.
STEP 3 : Warm and stir until all sugar crystals have dissolved and the syrup is clear and glossy.
STEP 4 : Bottle while warm into a sterile bottle.
top tip
Using caster or baker’s sugar makes the process of dissolving the sugar crystals into the water much easier.
If you don’t have access to a pan and/ or a source of heat, you can actually simply use a blender to aggressively mix the sugar and water together into a syrup! This is a great ‘when all else fails’ technique to pull out of the bag!
Ginger SYRUP
There are many recipes for ginger syrup that simply tell you to infuse a sugar syrup with slices of ginger. However, for a more powerful and deliciously gingery syrup, we prefer this method using ginger juice.
Even if you don’t have a juicer, ginger juice is about as common as milk in shops these days. So, you can always buy off the shelf juice to make your syrup.
The process is essentially the same as the Rich Simple Syrup above, simply replacing the water with ginger juice.
STEP 1 : Use a measuring cup and add 2 cups of sugar to a pan.
STEP 2 : Using the same cup add 1 cup of ginger juice to the same pan.
STEP 3 : Warm and stir until all sugar crystals have dissolved and the syrup is clear and glossy.
STEP 4 : Bottle while warm into a sterile bottle.
top tip
As with making making rich simple syrup, using caster or baker’s sugar makes the process a lot easier.
Just gently warm and stir the mixrure and it will be smooth and glossy in no time!
Honey SYRUP
All recipes here use a ‘Rich’ Simple Syrup. This simply means a sugar syrup that contains 2 parts of sugar and 1 part of water. Some bartenders prefer a 1:1 syrup, using equal parts of sugar and water. However, much as this really comes down to personal preference, we also think that there’s a good reason for using rich simple syrup, as it will add less water to your batch, which in some cases will be better for preservation and fitting more batch in your bottle!
STEP 1: Use a measuring cup and add 2 cups of sugar to a pan.
top tip
Not all honeys taste the same, so taste different ones to find what works best for you.
FRESH JUICE
You can buy delicious and genuinely freshly squeezed juices these days but not every- where and not every juice.
The ones you might struggle to find are the ones you need the most for cocktails. Top tip, if it’s shelf stable it isn’t fresh, so, if in any doubt, just squeeze your own!
The one key piece of advice here is simply about straining. There are degrees to how far you want to take this process, however, in batched cocktails it makes a real difference to the aesthetic of the drink, and importantly, will help keep bubbles in liquids if you choose to bottle your cocktail with carbonation.
As a minimum, all juices should be passed through a fine strainer or sieve before being used in your batching. You don’t want a rogue seed or pieces of pulp floating around in your bottle of cocktail! Not a good look!
Up from that, a very clean French Press or Cafetiere has an excellent fine mesh strainer that will work great for most cocktails you want to bottle.
STEP 1: Use a measuring cup and add 2 cups of sugar to a pan.
Beyond that, passing through at least 2 ply muslin or cheesecloth will give an excellent texture that will work for bottling with carbonation. The issue here is that bubbles need physical structures to form in liquids. So, if you have solids in your liquid when you add carbonation or carbonated liquids, you will get foaming and loss of gas, and then foaming again when the bottle is opened. This will then give you a very flat drink very quickly.
Another way to explain this, is to imagine you’re looking at a glass of champagne. The bubbles in the glass form on microscopic scratches and imperfections on the inside of the glass. Very high quality glass will even make Champagne look virtually flat, until you sip it. On the other hand, think of all the bubbles that stream off the sugar cube in a Champagne Cocktail. The difference is extreme, but hopefully illustrates the point. We imagine you are now judging every champagne glass you sip from or thinking ‘oh, I haven’t had a Cham-pagne Cocktail in forever’!
If you want to go all the way to start to rip out color from your batch then you can pass the juice through a coffee filter. You will need to change the filter regularly as it will become clogged quickly. To minimise this, pre-filtration is essential here.
TEA INFUSION
Tea is a brilliant ingredient for cocktails and can be used in a number of different ways.
This technique uses the alcohol in Fords Gin to pull out the flavors from the tea that would usually be done by hot water. You DO NOT heat the mix of gin and tea.
STEP 1 : Add 1/4 cup Earl Grey tea leaves (or 3 tea bags) into a 750/700 ml bottle of Fords Gin.
STEP 2 : Replace the cap and roll the bottle end-over-end to get the tea soaked into the gin and start the infusion.
STEP 3 : Let the tea and gin sit together to infuse at room temperature for at least 2 hours and up to 8 hours**
STEP 4 : Strain the infused gin through a coffee filter into a separate container. Rinse the bottle to remove loose tea, then pour the gin back into the clean bottle. This can be stored indefinitely if refrigerated.
AMOUNT OF TEA vs TIME vs AGITATION
How much flavour you impart into the gin will depend on a simple ratio:
The more tea you add the faster the infusion will be. Stirring or shaking will also ex- tract flavours faster.
Where’s the danger? Over extraction will add too many tannins. Tannins from ingredients such as tea, or red wine, bring delicate and delicious dry, bitter characteristics to a drink. However, too much of a good thing here is a very bad thing!
To avoid over extraction, don’t overly agitate and taste regularly through the process to find the perfect point of infusion. Black teas infuse quicker than Oolong teas and Oolong teas infuse faster than green teas.
If you taste your infusion and it has become overly bitter, there is nothing you can do about it. Simply throw it away and start again. A devastating waste of delicious gin, however, it’s better than wasting more ingredients and time continuing to make the recipe with an overly bitter product that won’t taste good in the end.
Keep this in mind, but know that with just a little care there’s no reason why you should have to throw away ANY gin due to over extraction!