Category: garnish

  • Purple Food Colorings: Anthocyanin

    Purple cornAnthocyanins are pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue or black. Food plants rich in anthocyanins include the blueberry, raspberry, black rice, and black soybean, among many others that are red, blue, purple, or black. [wikipedia]

    That purple color-changing butterfly pea flower tea? [tea bags] [flowers] [powder form] Anthocyanin. The purple cabbage science experiment you did in middle school? Anthocyanin. 

    Wikipedia offers a list of food sources with high anthocyanin levels. I put them in descending order below. You might choose to use them to color your cocktails. 

    • Purple corn leaves
    • Purple corn [buy]
    • Dried red cabbage
    • Norton Grape
    • Eggplant
    • Blueberry
    • Black Raspberry
    • Raspberry
    • Concord grape
    • Acai
    • Plum
    • Ube

    In my next post, I have links to many different natural food/drink colorings. 

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  • Extracting Natural Color from Plants: The Freeze-Thaw Method

    In advance of my seminar at Tales of the Cocktail on Color in Cocktails and Spirits, I am putting up a few blog posts that the attendees (and you know, you) can use as reference. The images below are exported PowerPoint slides. 

    I was trying to create some natural colors from plants and read about how dyers do it. Many of them are not practical (or safe) for food and beverage use. Some ways to extract color that are safe include: 

    Slide123

     

    But one method I read about suggested freezing flower petals overnight, then thawing in hot water. This actually didn't work for me, but it gave me the idea for how to do it similarly. 

    The idea is that freezing plants breaks the cell structure and allows the natural colors to release when you add water. So what I did on my second attempt was to freeze the flower petals in water, then let it thaw out and strain out the solids. 

    This worked much better for me, and then I decided to repeat the process (not with new petals but just freezing and thawing the same ice cubes three times). Each time the color of the water became more intense. It worked! 

    Slide123

    With any flowers in particular or plants in general picked from nature (as opposed to the produce section), make sure that they're safe and edible. A great resource for that is CocktailSafe.org

    Slide123

    Above are the flower petals I harvested from my patio. I put them in 2' ice cube trays with some water. 

    Slide123As you can see, the colors came out lovely. 

    The idea is that you could now use this water as a base for a simple syrup, soda, or ice cube with the natural color in it. 

    Though I haven't experimented with other plants yet, I bet this technique would work great for many things. 

     

  • Aquafaba Future Experiments and Suggestions

    This week we've been learning about how to prepare aquafaba – chickpea or garbanzo bean water – to replace egg white as a frother in cocktails. The previous posts have been:

     

    712HMjfNlaL._SL1500_Along the way I've heard a few good ideas and suggestions that I have not yet tried. These all sound like great ideas and I love that they come from three different countries. 

    So far I haven't come up with a "best" way to make aquafaba, largely because I'm just trying small experiments at home rather than working in a bar with high volume. Hopefully these posts will inspire some folks to keep on trying and sharing their experiments too. 

     

    Frozen 'Faba

    Forest Collins of 52Martinis.com in Paris says, "I've recently tried freezing my chickpea water in 10ml batches and then pulling it out of the freezer when needed. It seemed to work well in the freezer, although I didn't do a comparison and only tried it in a blended pisco sour, but there was still a lot of froth on it." 

     

    Density Check for Consistency

    Daniel Seehuusen, Bar Manager at Avalon Hotel in Gothenburg, Sweden, says (edited for clarity): 

    I used to work with this a lot a while ago. Since we got our aquafaba from the kitchen it never was the same consistency.  So we used a oechsle meter, I think the sweet spot was around 35-37 OE (or was it 45….). [Note: an oechsle meter is analogous to a refractometer for measuring brix]

    I think that the most bang for the buck would be boiling the peas 2 times. Combine the liquids and dilute/reduce to the oechsle of your choice. We had it in a bottle, on ice. I think we used around 20 ml per cocktail.

     

    61Zzbmzh1+L._SL1000_Pressure Cooker

    Andrew Nicholls, co-founder of William George Rum from The Netherlands, says,  "I make an aquafaba by rehydrating chickpeas and placing one cup of the rehydrated chickpeas in a pressure cooker with three cups of water. Bring up to pressure and cook for 40 minutes.  The pressure helps “extract” more of the proteins/globulins, which makes for a more stable foam than canned chickpeas (in my opinion).

     

  • Aquafaba Experiments Round 3

    In previous experiments with aquafaba to replace egg white for froth in cocktails:

    I tried chickpea/garbanzo bean water from canned beans, from uncooked and cooked beans, and from chickpea flour both cooked and uncooked. 

    I found in those experiments that canned water was best for the amount and quality of froth produced, followed by uncooked flour water, followed closely by boiled bean water.

    Though I didn't love the taste of unboiled garbanzo bean flour water, I decided to try garbanzo bean flour as a solid – by adding the flour directly to the drink before shaking. 

    I tried 1/4 teaspoon chickpea flour, 1/8 tsp, amd 1/16 tsp.

    IMG_5583

    I found that 1/16th wasn't quite enough, but 1/8 teaspoon seemed to work just fine. (note this experiment was with vodka and water plus the flour) 

    One issue with using the flour (rather than water with flour in it that's left to settle as in previous experiments) is that it settles out relatively quickly to the bottom of the glass. That's why I wanted to minimize the amount in the first place. 

     

    IMG_5586

    A second issue is the flavor: though not incredibly powerful, there are notes of raw flour and a slight tannic or metallic flavor. 

    On the plus side, if only occasionally using an egg white replacement in cocktails, chickpea flour is shelf stable compared with liquid. It might be worth testing to see if the flavor of the uncooked flour and the settling is tolerable. 

    However if you're hoping to use aquafaba more often or switch to an egg white alternative permanently, I would think you'd want something that doesn't settle in the glass and has less of a flavor impact. For that, I would return to the posts with the technique by Hannes Schmitt or Aquafaba Experiments Round 1 to see a few options. 

     

     

     

  • Aquafaba Experiments Round 2

    In my previous post I tried some ways to see what preparation method makes the best aquafaba: chickpea/garbanzo bean water used in place of egg whites to make cocktails frothy. 

    To recap, I found the best aquafaba waters were, in order: 

    1. From the can
    2. Chickpea flour boiled then letting the solids settle off.
    3. Cooking water for chickpeas.

    In the next set of experiments I wanted to see if I could produce more water in cooking and see if I could use unboiled chickpea flour. So my aquafabas were:

    1. Quick-Soaked Beans Cooked for 90 Minutes in Lots of Water: I did the quick soak method this time: I brought the beans to a boil for 3 minutes, then let them soak for 2 hours before discarding the water. This water had only a slight flour aroma. 
    2. Quick-Soaked Beans Cooked for 3 Hours in Lots of Water. This had a touch of flour aroma. 
    3. Boiled Chickpea Flour Water: The same sample from the previous experiment. Its aroma was kind of like flour. 
    4. Unboiled Chickpea Flour Water: I shook some chickpea flour with water in a jar then let it settle overnight. I used only the lightest of this water to minimize solids. It had a fairly yucky "raw" flour aroma. 
    5. Second Cook Water, from previous experiment: After cooking beans, I reboiled half of them for an additional 30 minutes and kept this water.

    For the experiments, I used a Disaronno Sour (2 parts Disaronno to 1 part lemon juice), plus 1/2 ounce aquafaba.  

    Aquafaba foam experiments round two (2)

    The winners were:

    • #4 Unboiled Chickpea Flour Water. The downside to this is that it has the most flavor – I consider it tannic but others might say metallic; plus it's greyish in color compared with the brownish ones. 
    • #5 Second Cook Water, which was sort of the control. It tasted better than the winner. 
    • #3 Boiled Chickpea Flour Water. This also tasted fine/neutral. 
    • Then 1-2, the chickpea water made from long boils with lots of water, didn't produce enough foam to count. 

    Conclusions

    1. My experiments in boiling less beans for a long period of time failed. 
    2. Boiled chickpea flour tastes better than unboiled, plus it looks better in the glass. It's not quite as foamy but may be worth the tradeoff. 
    3. Regular chickpea cooking water is still pretty decent. It would be worth looking at the costs between using dried chickpeas vs the flour. 

    Future Experiments:

    If this chickpea flour is working so well, maybe I should try using the smallest scoop possible I can of it. I did try this previously and found that the solids were too problematic, but it's worth another shot. 

    I've now tried it and here is the post!

     

     

  • Aquafaba Experiments Round 1

    After reading the detailed description of making the best aquafaba by Hannes Schmitt from Electric Eel on yesterday's post, I decided I wanted to try some experiments myself to see what makes the best, frothiest, least expensive, least smelly chick pea/garbanzo bean water frother. 

    Schmitt's method is to hydrate the chickpeas (discarding the water), then cook them (saving the water), then soak them again (keeping the water). You combine the water from the cooking and the soaking together. After my experiments, that looks to be a very good method. 

    In the first round of experiments I prepared 6 types of chick pea water and made the same drink with all of them:

    1. Chickpea Soaking Water: The water used to hydrate dried chickpeas. This was light in color. 
    2. Cooking Water: The water used to boil chickpeas (about 90 minutes, probably too long). The resulting water the next day was super gloppy, nearly gelatinous. In the future I would boil the beans for less time.
    3. Second Cook Water: After cooking the beans, I boiled half of them for an additional 30 minutes and kept this water. This water was also gelatinous the next morning. 
    4. Post-Cook Soak Water: The other half of the beans after cooking I left to soak with water overnight. This water was lighter in color, with more of a fresh bean aroma than cooked.
    5. Canned Chickpea Water (unsalted! make sure to buy unsalted): Traditional aquafaba from the can. Note that I had opened the can previously and transferred the water to another container. It seems to have lost most of the initial farty smell and smelled more like the flour. 
    6. Boiled Chickpea Flour Water: I have some chickpea flour, which makes great froth if you add a small scoop in a cocktail, but all the solids settle out. By boiling the chickpea flour I was trying to isolate whatever it is in chickpeas that makes good foam. After boiling for about half an hour or so, I placed the water in a tall jug then the next morning poured off the top portion with less solids evident. It had a touch of bean smell but nothing dramatic. 

    I then made drinks with all these waters: 1 ounce vodka, 1/2 oz simple syrup, 1/2 ounce lemon juice, 1 ounce water (to mimic ice), and 1/2 ounce aquafaba. 

    In the first picture below, you can tell the relative colors of the bean waters. The cooking water was darkest, while the flour water was milky. 

    Aquafaba foam experiments round one (1)

    After shaking in a cocktail. (Number 5 had been freshly reshaken as I spilled some so it's a little more dramatic than in real life.) Note that the flour water #6 on the right has a greyish tint. 

    Aquafaba foam experiments round one (1)

    Results:

    • #5 Canned Chickpea Water was the best, densest foam, by a lot. Note that in other experiments I determined the way to minimize the funky bean smell is to use as little of this as possible. I found that 1/2 teaspoon/barspoon is enough.
    • #6 Boiled Chickpea Flour Water was second best. It had the airiest foam.
    • #2  Cooking Water. This one had some smell but not too intense. 
    • Then #3 Second cook water, #4 Post-Cook Rinse water
    • Then #1 the Soaking Water didn't do much at all. 

    It seems that Schmitt's method of adding #2 to #4 (cooking water to post-cook soaking water) would combine some very thick water with a lighter one that still has some foaming action to minimize color and aroma. 

    The second boil water did produce nice foam, though the beans were probably ruined for anything but hummus after that point. But it did make me think about boiling beans for a super long time with more water to see if that would effectively give us more bang for the buck. 

    This inspired another round of experiments for the next day (and next blog post): Comparing boiled flour vs unboiled, and seeing if I could boil a small amount of rehydrated chickpeas for a long time to get a good aquafaba.  

    Next Up: Aquafaba Experiments Round 2

    and then Aquafaba Experiments Round 3 

     

  • Rainbow Mini Ice Balls

    I purchased a couple of ice cube trays online and made rainbow ice for Pride. 

    Rainbow Ice Marbles55

    I bought the trays on Amazon. The Hutzler 324 Ball Ice Tray makes 1-inch sized ice balls. It seems pretty good so far though I'm not certain of its longevity. 

    The Mydio 40 Tray makes small marble-sized ice balls of about half an inch in diameter. It's made of high-quality silicone and seems super sturdy. 

    Neither make clear ice (that's my jam, as you know), but the size of ice they make is very fun. 

    51yMONGylEL._SL1000_
    51yMONGylEL._SL1000_To make the colored ice balls I used either commercial food coloring or natural colorings like turmeric and hibiscus. 

    Then I just stacked them up in a glass in rainbow order.  Silly, fun. 

    Rainbow Ice Marbles02
    Rainbow Ice Marbles02
    Rainbow Ice Marbles02
    Rainbow Ice Marbles02

  • With Pokemon Ice Balls You Can Catch All The Drinks

    Pokemon Go is taking America by storm, but if you want in on the action without leaving the comfort of your home bar you might try making these Pokemon-themed ice balls instead.

    Pokemon ice ball7

     

    The process is really easy. I did it with two different sized ice ball molds:

     

    • IMG_2087
    • IMG_2099
    IMG_2099

     

    Step 1: Fill the bottom half of an ice ball mold with red liquid. I used cranberry juice in one (the darker one) and one of the red flavors of Gatorade in the other. Let it freeze overnight.

    Pokemon ice ball14

     

    Step 2: Chill some water. Put it in the refrigerator for a long time, then into the freezer for 20-30 minutes so it is just above freezing. You don't want to add hot water to the mold or it will make the red color bleed into the other half of the ice ball.

    Step 3: Attach the top of the mold and fill the other half with the cold water. 

    Step 4: Wait for it to freeze then pop it out and catch all the drinks.

     

    • Pokemon ice ball6
    • Pokemon ice ball10
    Pokemon ice ball10

     

     

    • Pokemon ice ball12
    • Pokemon ice ball9
    Pokemon ice ball9

     

     

    These Pokemon ice balls would be fun in non-alcoholic Pokemon cocktails or perhaps in a Pokemon Gin & Tonic. 

     

    Pokemon ice ball4
    Pokemon ice ball4

     

  • Make Easter Egg Ice for Easter

    Check out this post from a few years back on making ice shaped like Easter eggs. 

    Short answer: water balloons. 

    Coloredeggss
    Cleareggss
    Coloredeggsglasss