Four I'm Under My Host

If you’ve read this blog recently you’ll know I’ve been enjoying Scott Beattie’s Artisanal Cocktails, an excellent book for those who like to do a little cooking with their bar-tending. At this point I’m not simply following the recipes but, rather, creating variations based on my own personal tastes as well as the ingredients that I have on hand. As it happens, I recently made some grenadine. If you haven’t made your own, you really should. It bears no resemblance to the desultory bright red concoction of high-fructose corn syrup and red food coloring that you find in stores. It is essentially sweetened pomegranate juice and the procedure is quite simple. So, with my pomegranate juice on hand, Scott’s recipe for the PomIranian (scroll down) caught my eye and I worked from there.

We were having some friends over for dinner (smoke-roasted sirloin with yellow tomato chutney, but that’s another story) and I wanted something that would look dramatic and taste fantastic without requiring a ton of assembly work. I mostly succeeded.  Here are proportions for two cocktails:

• 2 ounces vodka
• 2 ounces grapefruit vodka (I used Absolut). Orange vodka would work well too, as in the PomIranian.
• 1 ounce lime juice. The small, juicy Mexican limes are best for this.
• 2 ounces Spiced Grenadine
• 1 egg white
• 10-15 leaves of mint. I used Chinese hot mint, available at Berkeley Bowl. It added some additional zing that was terrific.

Muddle the mint in the bottom of the cocktail shaker. Add the egg white and give it a good long shake to emulsify. Add everything else and a good portion of ice. Shake again, vigorously, since you’re trying for a nice foam.  Serve in a champagne glass. No garnish necessary, but a curly orange peel over the rim would look nice.

To make the spiced grenadine, briefly roast approximately one tablespoon of cardamom pods, one tablespoon of crushed whole black peppercorns, 1 smashed nutmeg pod and 2 pods of star anise. Mix approximately 2 cups of pomegranate juice and 1.5 cups of sugar and bring to a boil (this is your grenadine). You can add more sugar if you like it a little sweeter. Add the spice mixture to the grenadine and let simmer for 3-5 minutes. Remove from the heat and let cool, then strain the liquid into an airtight container, pressing on the spices to get as much flavor out as possible. Voila, spiced grenadine!

I’m happy to report that this was a big success and met with rave reviews from our guests. I was a bit disappointed in the color, which was light brown rather than red or pink (one guest asked, before tasting, if there was chocolate in the drink).  Homemade grenadine tends to be brownish red rather than candy apple red and I think the mint and egg-white might have moved the whole mixture towards brown. Everyone else liked the color, especially with the foam, but I’m puzzling over how to make it look a bit more red. Maybe abandoning the foam and finding another garnish would help.

Sorry, no pictures of this one.

Related posts:

1. Lemon Mint
2. The Post-Script