Category: liqueur

  • A Visit to the Cointreau Distillery in Angers, France

    This October I visited the Cointreau distillery in Angers, France. Angers is located southwest of Paris, about equidistant from Paris and Bordeaux.  Guignolet

    I hadn't realized, but Cointreau was not originally famous for orange liqueur, but for Guignolet, a cherry liqueur. Cherries were brought the region by King Rene', who lived at the Chateau D'Angers.

    We visited this castle and its tapestry called The Apocalypse; the world's longest. 

    This way to the apocalypse Chateau DAngers_tn
    (This way to the Apocalypse!)

    Apocalypse tapesty Chateau DAngers2_tn

    The original Cointreau distillery was located in downtown Angers, but has since relocated. We drove to the distillery. 

    Cointreau distillery1_tn

    There, Alfred Cointreau explained the process.

    Alfred cointreau at cointreau distillery3_tn

    The Distillation of Cointreau

    Bitter and sweet orange peels are purchased from Brazil, Africa, and Spain. The dried peels at a certain ratio, along with some fresh peels, 96 percent neutral sugar beet alcohol, and water, are placed into the stills. The peels sit on a plate in the stills to make them easier to remove after distillation. They macerate this mixture overnight before distilling.

    The stills for the first distillation are shaped like water tanks, made of copper.

    Cointreau distillery stills3_tn

    After the first distillation, the alcohol passes up and over the tall, curved lyne arm to the second still. 

    Cointreau distillery stills2_tn

    The second still is a column. 

    Cointreau distillery stills4_tn

    (The straight pipes going back to the first stills are a type of reflux.)

    In this one room they make the world's supply of Cointreau- 15 million bottles annually. 

    Due to local restrictions, the Cointreau for Brazil and Argentina is distilled here as usual to make a concentrated Cointreau, but then diluted and sweetened with sugar cane alcohol and sugar cane sugar, while the rest of the world gets beet alcohol/sugar. It would be fun to compare the two to see if one could detect any differences. 

    Production Parameters

    We were then given a talk by Cointreau's Master Distiller Bernadette Langlais. Some information learned:

    • The sweet oranges lend the orangey taste; the bitter peels bring a fresh, zesty lemon/lime notes
    • Bitter oranges are harvested when still green
    • The peels are either dried in the sun or in ovens 
    • There are 220 different essential oils in orange peels
    • The bitter molecules from orange pith don't carry over during distillation. Thus they don't worry about the thickness of the peels. However, when something is just macerated (for example, limoncello) and not distilled then it is important to not get pith on the peels.
    • When they add water to reduce Cointreau to proof, the essential oils in the peels cause the liqueur to louche; to get cloudy like when you add water to absinthe. They centrifuge the Cointreau to make it clear again. [*Update* This isn't quite true – see this post for clarification on the centrifuge process.]
    • Of competing brands, they say that Cointreau has the highest amount of essential oils and the lowest amount of added sugar.
    • The used orange peels go for cattle feed after distillation.
    • Because of the volatility of the essential oils in Cointreau, bartenders should not leave a pour spout on the bottle overnight- some of the flavor will evaporate.

    Cointreau production talk7_tn

     History

    As mentioned previously, Cointreau originally produced cherry and many other liqueurs. (Today they still produce other products at the distillery but not under their name.) 

    Cointreau orgeat_tn

    As mentioned in this post, the Dutch were the first to make Curacao using bitter oranges from that island. When the French became famous for their liqueurs, curacao evolved into triple sec. 

    Cointreau initially produced a product called curacao, and then a 'curacao triple sec' and then a 'triple sec."

    Eventually many brands of triple sec came on the market. Cointreau's label used to have a big "Triple Sec" and a small "Cointreau" but later reversed their relative size. Today Cointreau doesn't even use 'triple sec' in its descriptor. 

    Cointreau triple sec_tn

    As we know, the 'sec' refers to the dry, or less sweetened style of liqueur. Their opinion about the word 'triple' (the two arguments being either triple distillation/triple refined, or three times as orangey) is three times as concentrated orange flavor. The company had also produced a 'triple creme de menthe' and other 'triple' products, which I think backs up this argument. 

    Camper at cointreau distillery_tn

  • Solid Liquids: The Deconstructed Midori Sour

    SolidLiquidsProjectSquareLogoJust for fun in the Solid Liquids Project I put some dehydrated Midori to good use. 

    I made a Deconstructed Midori Sour. 

    You dip the lemon in dehydrated Midori, bite into the Midori-coated lemon, and then do the shot of vodka. 

    Deconstructed midori sour1_tn

    With people who do the lime-salt-tequila shot, they use the lime to and salt to hide the taste of bad tequila. In this case, the lemons were so tart that the sugar in the Midori wasn't enough to balance it out, so you need to vodka to chase the lemon rather than the other way around.

    Anyway, this is all in good fun. 

     The Solid Liquids Project  index is at this link.

     

  • A Note About Dehydrating Honey-Based Liqueurs

    SolidLiquidsProjectSquareLogoIn the Solid Liquids Project I found that liqueurs sweetened with honey do not crystallize. (At least the honey-sweetened liqueurs that I tried.) I theorized on why and how we might over come this in this post

    However, in reading an unrelated book, I think I found the real reason these liqueurs are not crystallizing.

    I was reading Bi-Rite Market's Eat Good Food: A Grocer's Guide to Shopping, Cooking & Creating Community Through Food and found the following in the section on honey:

    Honey is a super-saturated solution, which means it has a tendency to crystallize (come out of solution) and turn solid over time. Because of this, most producers filter and pasteurize their honey to prevent crystallization and create a more uniform product

    Eureka! If it's one thing alcohol producers want, it is products that are consistent and don't spoil or separate in the bottle. My guess is liqueur producers who use honey use pasteurized honey, and that this is why liqueurs sweetened with honey have not crystallized in my experiments. 

    The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link

     

  • A Trip to Italy with Pallini Limoncello

    I am one lucky son-of-a-gun. This September I visited Rome and the Amalfi Coast with Pallini LimoncelloThough we began the trip in Rome and went to the Amalfi Coast later, I'll explain the process of making limoncello in the proper order. 

    The Lemons of the Amalfi Coast

    The lemons for Pallini are sfusato ("elongated") lemons, so-named for their tapered shape. They are also sometimes called feminine lemons because each side looks like a nipple. These are slightly different from Sorrento lemons that are more football-shaped. 

    Lemon pallini distillery2_tn
     

    These lemons are low in acid; very sweet. In fact we had an unsweetened lemonade made with them. It was tart, but still drinkable. Even the pith isn't that bitter- we had a 'salad' made with these lemons soaked in balsamic vinegar and salt – and you could eat the whole thing – fruit, pith, and rind. 

    Lemon vinager salad amalfi coast lemon tour_tn

    But for limoncello purposes, they're interested in the skin of the lemons only. The skins of sfusato lemons are highly aromatic and rich in essential oils. 

    These lemons grow along the Amalfi Coast in a most improbable way. Actually, the whole coast doesn't make much sense – it is all incredibly steep and rocky, with sharp inclines from the mountains down to the ocean. Picture the drive along Highway 1 in California if people had build houses all the way down to the ocean. 

    Amalfi coast italy3_tn


    Amalfi coast italy10_tn

    Carved into the cliffs are terraced gardens on which they grow lemons, along with eggplants, grapes, tomatoes, olives, and everything else you can think of. It's a surprisingly productive area given that the base is just rocks. 

    Terraced lemon grove amalfi coast lemon tour_tn

    But the cliff-side growing arrangement means lots and lots of sunshine for these plants. The lemons grow so big and so productively that if these were just normal trees growing on their own, the branches would almost surely snap beneath the weight of the fruit.

    Amalfi coast lemon tour lemon bunch_tn

    Thus the farmers have developed a system to support the lemon tree branches, a pergola made of chestnut wood. This forms a lemon tree umbrella of sorts, with hundreds of huge lemons dangling from above. 

    Amalfi coast lemon tour trellice3_tn

    Amalfi coast lemon tour lemon trees3_tn
    (Bonus cat picture!)

    Amalfi coast lemon tour monastary lemon view_tn

    The terraced lemon groves present some difficulties in harvesting, as you'd imagine. The lemons are all picked by hand as they ripen, then must be carried uphill to the next road that can be pretty far when you've got a heavy crate of lemons on your back. 

    Amalfi coast lemon tour steep stairs_tn

     

    Carrying lemons amalfi coast lemon tour8_tn

    Processing Lemons

    After the lemons are harvested, they're transported by truck along the windy (and terrifying to those of us scared of heights) road to the processing center. We visited the one Pallini uses: Castier Agrumi De Riso

    Castier agrumi de riso washing lemons2_tn

    When the lemons come in to the factory, they are first washed and then sorted. The very best lemons are sold in crates to stores and restaurants. The rest are peeled to make limoncello. 

    Castier agrumi de riso sorting2_tn
    Castier agrumi de riso peeling machine2_tn

    To do this, they use a machine that peels two lemons at a time. It is hand-loaded and seems to frequently jam – no wonder with sticky, oily peels involved. In this video, you can see the machine working. 

    The peels that come out are then vacuum-sealed into bags and sent to Pallini to use. 

    Making Limoncello

    Pallini's distillery (it's not actually a distillery as they don't distill there but a rectification plant; still I'll call it a distillery for the sake of clarity) is where they make limoncello from the lemon peels.

    Pallini distillery1_tn

    Though once there were 30 distilleries in Rome, Pallini is the only one left. Originally, the distillery was located a few hundred yards from the Pantheon in central Rome but now it is in an industrial park-type area a good 30-40 minutes drive from the city center. 

    To make the limoncello, first they soak the peels in high-proof alcohol (I think around 96%) to extract their flavor. Though they didn't tell us the exact time, I inferred the extraction takes less than a couple of days. 

    Lemon peels pallini distillery_tn

    Adding lemon peels pallini distillery_tn

    Infusing lemon peels pallini distillery2_tn

    Then they blend this concentrated lemon alcohol with more neutral alcohol (that is distilled from Italian sugar beet molasses), water, and a sugar syrup (made from crystallized sugar beet sugar). To make the flavor pop, they also add essential oils from the same lemons.

    Limoncello tasting pallini distillery2_tn

    Somewhere in the process, they homogenize the ingredients so they retain a fresh flavor and do not separate or oxidize. We tasted several other brands of limoncello and most had a slightly musty flavor of oxidation compared to Pallini

    Bottle line pallini distillery2_tn

    Other Products

    Pallini also makes a Raspicello (useful as a Chambord substitute, or perhaps in a Bramble?) and a Peachcello (for the Bellini). These are actually made by distilling the berries and peaches, and adding fruit juice or fresh berries back in at bottling time. The production seemed pretty interesting but we didn't go into it in detail.

    Pallini makes around 150 products, which you'd never guess given the size of the distillery. The most famous one, however, is Sambuca Romana. They created this brand but sold it to Diageo in the 1980s. They still produce it for Diageo though. It's actually a pretty interesting product on its own; a blend of distillates from three kinds of anise, elderflower, angelica, and other herbs and spices. 

    Anyway, that's it for my Pallini trip. Limoncello is an incredibly straight-forward liqueur made from very special lemons grown in an absolutely stunning place. 

    Camper lemons3_tn

  • Solid Liquids: Dehydrating Other Liqueurs Part Two

    SolidLiquidsProjectSquareLogoIn yesterday's post in the Solid Liquids Project (project index here) I had expanded beyond dehydrating Campari into dehydrating other liqueurs, namely X-Rated Fusion Liqueur, Wild Turkey American Honey, Irish Mist, and Midori. These are all part of the Skyy Spirits portfolio.

    Of these four, only Midori crystallized like Campari had. I tried several methods to make the others crystallize but failed for the large part. I went over those in yesterday's post.

    (Note: Before you get too deep into this, I just want to warn you that at this point I haven't figured out a solution to this problem and I welcome your suggestions.)

    Nothing was working to make the others crystallize, but then inspiration hit.

    Four dehydrated liqueurs in cups_tn

    Inspiration: What Do These Liqueurs Have in Common?

    I realized that two of the liqueurs – Wild Turkey American Honey and Irish Mist – are sweetened with honey!

    Furthermore, though I have no proof of this, I suspected that X Rated Fusion Liqueur may be sweetened with fruit juice.

    Perhaps these other forms of sugar do not crystallize, or don't do so in the same way that cane sugar/sucrose does.

    But first, I figured I should test the theory that X Rated Fusion Liqueur does not crystallize in the same way that known fruit juice-sweetened liqueurs do not crystallize. I placed X Rated Fusion, Hypnotiq, and Courvoisier Rose into cupcake cups and baked them at 140F for about 36 hours.

    Three fruit liqueurs _tn
    Three fruit liqueurs in oven_tn

    Courvoisier Rose came the closest to crystallizing, being a dense and sticky puck of liqueur. The other two were just gooey.

    Three fruit liqueurs in oven finished_tn
    Hypnotiq dehydrated_tn

    Though this doesn't necessarily prove anything, it's a clue that fruit juice-sweetened liqueurs don't crystallize the same way cane sugar/sucrose-sweetened liqueurs do.

    A Further Test

    While I was performing these experiments, I learned of the Stovetop Crystallization Method previously discussed. That method seems pretty foolproof, so I decided to test it on both X Rated Fusion Liqueur and on Wild Turkey American Honey just to be sure they don't crystallize even at high candying temperatures.

    X Rated Fusion turned from pink to brown to black.

    Stovetop x rated fusion liqueur_tn
    Brown stovetop x rated fusion liqueur_tn 
    Black stovetop x rated fusion liqueur_tn
    Cup of stovetop x rated fusion liqueur_tn

    And even at high temperatures, it just formed a thick molasses-like candy syrup that would solidify as soon as you removed it from heat. These sugar pucks do not make good sugar crystals even after you crush them. The resulting sugar/powder is just as sticky as a syrupy liquid.

    Wild Turkey American Honey performed similarly, except it does not turn black. It's more like a caramel at the end.

    Wild turkey american honey stovetop dehydration_tn
    Wild turkey american honey  stovetop (2)_tn

    Again though this doesn't prove anything, it may be a clue as to which type of liqueurs do and do not form crystals when you dehydrate them.

    In the next set of experiments, I'll look at a couple other honey liqueurs to see if they similarly do not crystallize while other liqueurs do.

    Then I'll try to overcome this obstactle.

     

    The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link.

     

  • Solid Liquids: Dehydrating Other Liqueurs: Problems

    SolidLiquidsProjectSquareLogoSo far in the Solid Liquids Project (project index here) I've been experimenting with the best way to get liqueurs into a solid/powder/sugar form.

    I have performed all of these experiments with Campari so far, but now it's time to try some other liqueurs. Since Skyy Spirits is sponsoring this project, I began with other liqueurs from the company.

    I put four liqueurs into the food dehydrator: X-Rated Fusion Liqueur, Wild Turkey American Honey, Irish Mist, and Midori.

    Four liqueurs in dehydrator_tn

    After a standard amount of time (24-36 hours), only Midori had crystallized.

    Dehydrated midori_tn
    Crystallized midori2_tn
    Dehydrated midori5_tn

    Second Attempt: A Long Time in the Dehydrator

    The others remained partially liquid, like a thick syrup.

    Three liqueurs unfinished_tn
    Stick spot x rated2_tn

    So I put them back in the dehydrator for another two days. They never crystallized, but when I let the trays cool, most of the liqueur did turn solid, forming almost a plane of glass that easily cracked.

    Glassy x rated liqueur_tn
    Glassy x rated liqueur4_tn
    Mortar and pestle_tn

    I broke this up, but these liqueurs were still very, very sticky and would not be useful for rimming glassware and other solid uses. 

    Third Attempt: Using the Oven

    Next I tried to use the oven to see if the temperature was the problem; perhaps these liqueurs needed higher temperatures to crystallize? I took the sticky solid liqueurs from the dehydrator and put them in the oven at 170. The result was just a sticky puck of gooey liqueur. Still not crystallized.

    Still sticky liqueurs_tn

    Then I repeated the oven attempt, this time using liquid liqueur (last time I took it from the dehydrator after that didn't work) but set at the lowest temperature, 140 Fahrenheit. This also did not achieve crystallization.

    Fourth Attempt: Adding More Sugar to the Liqueur

    What if, I thought, the problem is that there isn't enough sugar in the liqueur to crystallize? To test this theory (assuming it would fail, because as the liqueur dehydrates the water and alcohol disappear, making a concentrated sugar solution so it shouldn't matter how much sugar is in there as long as there is some) I added sugar to Wild Turkey American Honey.

    This liqueur wouldn't actually hold much additional sugar. I added one part sugar to two parts Wild Turkey American Honey and it would not fully dissolve into solution.

    Not fully dissolved add sugar to wtah_tn
    Add sugar to wtah_tn

    So I gave it a hard shake and put it in a cupcake cup and put it in the oven at 170F. After a day it mostly crystallized, but still left a slightly sticky puck of non-solid liqueur at the bottom.

    Dried wtah plus sugar_tn
    Dried wtah plus sugar2_tn

    When I ground up this sugar in a spice grinder, it became a powder, but the powder was incredibly sticky. You couldn't use it to rim a glass or anything like that. In the storage container I put it in, it quickly formed a solid gooey mass.

    Sticky dehydrated wild turkey american honey2_tn
    Sticky dehydrated wild turkey american honey fingers_tn

    I was slightly despondent: Only two out of five liqueurs that I tried to dehydrate were successful.Would these methods only work on a fraction of liqueurs?

    Four dehydrated liqueurs in cups_tn

    But then inspiration hit….

    To keep this post from being too long, I'll post the second half of it tomorrow.

     

    The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link.

  • Solid Liquids: Campari Fruit Roll-Ups

    SolidLiquidsProjectSquareLogoIn the Solid Liquids Project (project index here) we are experimenting with the best methods to dehydrate liqueurs, and then putting the dehydrated liqueur to good use.

    This is one of those uses.

    I've been using a food dehydrator as one method of dehydrating liqueurs. It works well enough, though other methods are faster. In order to use it, I insert plastic trays into the dehydrator shelves so that the liquid won't pour through the holes.

    These trays are actually designed to make fruit leathers. The instructions on how to do so come with the tray, so I knew as soon as I got enough liqueur sugar I'd be using it for this.

    First Try

    On my first attempt, I followed the instructions a little too closely. Basically you use apple sauce to form the base layer of the fruit leather, then add other fruit to it to flavor it. The example recipe given is to use:

    2 cups unsweetened apple sauce
    2 pints strawberries, de-stemmed and with bruises cut off

    To this I added 1/3 cup dehydrated Campari sugar and mixed it up in the blender.

    I spread this out over two of the circular trays and let it dry for 14 hours, which was a little bit too long as the fruit leather was cracky in some parts and they didn't roll up.

    Fruit roll in dehydrator thick_tn
    Thick fruit roll closeup_tn

    They were delicious, but unfortunately you could barely taste the Campari; only a little bitterness.

    Second Try

    On my second attempt I left out the strawberries as a flavoring agent, and I did much better. My recipe was simply:

    Campari Fruit Roll-Ups

    2 cups unsweetened apple sauce
    1/2 cup Campari sugar (in the future I'd use 3/4 cup)

    Add ingredients to a blender and blend until blended. Spread out over one tray in fruit dehydrator and dehydrate for about 12 hours, until there are no sticky spots. For thinner roll-ups, spread out over two trays.

    Fruit in dehydrator clsoeup_tn
    Cutting campari roll up ring_tn

    These were done to the perfect amount, and rolled up quite easily.

    Campari roll up3_tn
    Campari roll up several_tn
     

    They were also delicious. The Campari flavor kicked in as you chewed the roll-up and in the after-taste. They were amazing but as I say in the recipe, could use more Campari!

    Campari Straw Attempt

    For both recipes, I attempted to roll up the roll-ups into a straw, because a Campari straw would be fabulous.

    On one attempt I rolled a roll-up around a chopstick then waited to see if it would stick. It did not so I then weighed it down and put it in the oven to see if the ends would melt together. They did not, so I put it in the microwave to see if I would accomplish it that way, but it just came apart.

      Campari straw attempt1_tn

      Straw fail campari roll up_tn

    Alas. I'll keep working on this.

     

    The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link.

  • Dehydrating Liqueurs: Stovetop Crystallization Method

    SolidLiquidsProjectSquareLogoSo far in the Solid Liquids project, I experimented with using the food dehydrator, oven, and microwave to dehydrate liqueurs into flavored sugars. The project index is here.  

    Well, thanks to a Facebook friend, I now have a much more efficient way than all the others I've tried. Lauren Mote, co-owner of Kale & Nori Culinary Arts, wrote me to tell me the way she's made liqueur sugars. She wrote:

    So I have found the easiest way to do this is actually culinary and through "almost" candy making.

    If you cook down the spirit, and remove the water molecules, the liquids eventually crystallize…. the trick is "agitation". When you're trying NOT to crystallize, which is making candy, brushing the edges of a pot with water constantly prevents crystals from forming in the sugar. However, when you agitate the liquid and sugar, the crystals form. Continue to agitate, on low heat past the candy making stage, do not burn it. You will concentrate all of the flavour, without a microwave. Once the crystallization starts, it's really really really fast! Remove from the heat, keep mixing until the mixture turns light and powdery. Let cool on a SilPat non-stick baking sheet. Once cool, blitz in a food processor and sift through a tea strainer. What you're left with is completely concentrated, amazing powdered spirit. I did this with Cointreau and it was really amazing.

    I wasn't sure I was doing it right but I tried it out with Campari, and it works! In short, add the liqueur to a metal pot,

    Boiling campari

    Heat it so that the alcohol burns off, then it starts going into the candy phases as the water burns off. 

    Bubbling campari stovetop

    First it boils, then it gets thicker, then it starts to froth. Eventually the frothiness gets really big, like it's going to overboil.

    Heating campari stovetop
    Thick campari stovetop

    Stir it with a metal spoon (perhaps you have a barspoon around). Not long after this point the frothiness dies down a little. You'll notice sugar crystals on the bottom of the pan as you stir it and the volume of the liquid seems to shrink a lot. Though it still looks quite liquid, it's ready.

    Pull it out and as fast as you can, scrape it onto a silicone Silpat or other non-stick pan. You'll see that it is sugary and full of crystals. This dries really quickly.

    Scraped campari stovetop
    Dried campari stovetop2

    Then you can stick it into a spice grinder and get your powdered liqueur.

    Coffee grinder
    Campari sugar in coffee grinder
    Ground campari sugar in coffee grinder
    Pile of ground campari

    The process takes less than two hours, and it seems to work with larger quantities of liqueur just as fast. Sweet.

    In future posts, we'll finally start dehydrating liqueurs other than Campari.

    The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link

     

     

  • Solid Liquids: Bulk Liqueur Dehydration in the Oven

    SolidLiquidsProjectSquareLogoThis is just a quick post in the Solid Liquids Project (project index here) to note that you can dehydrate liqueurs in the oven in containers other than the silicone cupcake holders that I've been using.

    Many people have SilPat non-stick baking mats. These are great but have the problem of being flat so liquids run off them.

    However you can also get other silicone containers. I bought a breadpan-sized silicone pan from Amazon. It works just fine for dehydrating larger quantities of liqueurs.

    As you dehydrate a liqueur in the oven, a surface crust will form trapping some still-liquid liqueur beneath it, so it's important to break it up as it gets near the end of baking. I just squeeze the silicone pan to crunch the innards.

    Baking pan solid_tn
    Baking pan finished_tn
    Baking pan crushed_tn

     

    The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link.

     

  • Solid Liquids: Campari Syrup

    SolidLiquidsProjectSquareLogoIn the last post in the Solid Liquids project, I used dehydrated Campari to make a non-alcoholic Campari & Soda. 

    Then it occurred to me that for that purpose there was no need to dehydrate the liqueur completely. I could just burn off the alcohol and have a non-alcoholic syrup. 

    So that's what I did. I filled a pot with Campari and took its temperature with a candy thermometer when heating it. Alcohol boils at 172F as opposed to 212F for water, so I tried to keep the temperature between the two. 

    IMG_0142_tn

    It started to bubble around 175 and I could smell alcohol vapor. It began boiling around 183F. When it got to 189F it began to look thicker, as plenty had boiled off.

    IMG_0144_tn

    After an hour total I cooled the liquid to check the volume and found it to be reduced by 50 percent. And since the alcohol content of Campari is 24 percent  alcohol hopefully all the booze and some of the water burned off as well. 

    IMG_0148_tn

    After cooling and storing it, I made another non-alcoholic Campari & Soda. I added about an ounce of Campari syrup to about 3 ounces of soda water. 

    It's good, probably better than the powdered liqueur version. But campared with regular Campari & soda, real Campari still tastes better. Again the real deal has more of an orangey flavor, so the non-alcoholic version can use an expressed orange peel added to it. 

    IMG_0966_tn

    I'm guessing that the volatile citrus orange (oil?) in Campari burns off in the cooking and that's why it's not present in the syrup/solid version. 

    So: What else should I use this Campari syrup for? 

    Update: I just remembered that I saw Campari syrup on the menu at Nightjar in London. I'm not sure if their syrup is the same thing or something else, but it's in two drinks from the summer menu (forgive the funky formatting, it's their font):

    bRick lane cocktail
    g’vine floRaison gin
    campaRi syRup
    dolin dRy veRmouth
    fResh squeeZed mandaRin
    chambeRyZette jelly

    baRnaRd’s bRew
    nut-infused chaiRman’s ReseRve Rum
    nightjaR faleRnum
    caRibbean bitteRs
    campaRi syRup
    fResh squeeZed lime

     

    The Solid Liquids Project index is at this link