The Tale of Three Cocktails

First, credit and thanks should be given where due. My team, uplink and the foodie community were involved, intimately, in the development of these drinks. They are just as much yours as they are mine. /Cheers from Z's Fusion!

I agree with Jackie Rozier's feelings that there just aren't enough savory cocktails. So, I always like to keep on the lookout for opportunities to explore these types of drinks. Recently, an ingredient fell into my lap and I was encouraged to work with it...

Fresh beet juice

juice of 4 medium size beets, uncooked and peeled
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup lemon and lime juice, skin on
dash salt
1/2 teaspoon deoiled soy lecithin powder

The original concept was to make a goat cheese foam, and to float it over what was, essentially, a jazzed up gin and tonic. Unfortunately, I couldn't source the NO2, so I decided to add the lecithin to the mixer and create the foam through the mixing process. Goat cheese stuffed olives would add the flavor of the cheese, albeit indirectly. A couple hardcore foodies were game, so...

Hendrick's Gin
Beet Juice
lime squeeze

Shaken, with splash of tonic once in the glass

The foam turned out and the drink exhibited a predominate gin flavor. The goat cheese foam would have brought the drink into greater balance. The beet solids clung to the side of the glass, an undesirable side effect. The foodies dubbed it 'Dracula's Blood,' as even the olives were stained red and looked like bloody eyeballs. Good for Halloween, not so good the rest of the year. Out of a 1 - 10, a solid 8, as it was a very nice flavor profile. Perhaps I was just disappointed in not having the foam.

Hmm...

Next, we turned our attention to a concept I had posted on my facebook status page about a month ago, the umami sangria. The idea was to accentuate the earthy flavors of french oak found in old-world wines. This drink asked a couple fundamental questions about what a sangria is and could be:

Do we necessarily have to use wines that are past their prime? And use spirits to fortify said wine?

So, we pull the spirit out of the drink by serving a snifter alongside with mulled juniper berries. A juniper vapor, if you will, designed to be inhaled as one enjoys the sangria. It was very nice, and lended the illusion of gin in the experience. And people get a kick out of interactive recipes!

We chose two wines that we offer by the glass: a New Zealand Pinot Noir and a Barbera d'Alba. Both worked fine. The first tasting included most of my uplink and Merzaud aptly pointed out a balance issue in the drink. We also shook the drink in a shaker with ice. So, here was the thing: shaking the drink oxidized the wine and the temperature also restricted the flavors. And the sugar didn't help either. But the foam created was 1/2 inch tall and the drink had the texture of eggnog from all the solids, both desirable traits I feel. Unfortunately, we still had solids on the side of the glass. So we fined the juice through a coffee filter removing the solids (and the lecithin, unfortunately.)

Then Jackie and Amy Hoover stopped in. The new drink didn't foam well, had a normal texture and no solids on the side of the glass. We also shook the drink slightly, in a shaker with no ice. This brought the balance we talked about the previous day and we all seemed to enjoy it, but it seems to lack a flavor component. I think I got it now: when we revisit this drink again, I will steep porcini powder in the beet juice, and omit the sugar in the recipe. I think this will add the depth and dimension to make the drink a 10. Right now: 7.5 as it's good, but lacks the 'snap your head back' quality such a drink should have.

Hmm...

The final drink was the result of a foodie request. I was taking a day away from the sangria for introspection and this combination was trolling around in the ether, so to speak. Our Asiatini is a dirty martini made with half soy, half olive juice. Heath, the Bar Manager at Z's Steakhouse had designed quite the tasty drink and I really like the flavor of this ingredient, so you know I got my eye on it's potential applications. Here it is:

The mix
2 parts clarified beet juice
1 part olive juice
1 part soy sauce

The drink

Kissui Rice Vodka
Mix, to palate
splash tonic
Lemon Twist

His eyes grew large and he said to me that the drink was like something he would expect to find in Korea. By his last name, his ancestors came from either Korea or the Mongolian steppes, so I am inclined to believe him. He refused a splash of Grand Marnier, waving me off and saying 'it's perfect the way it is.' I have to agree. Great character and balance with definite Asiatic qualities. How about that... sooner or later even the blind squirrel gets the nut! Ranking: solid 9, original and tasty, a completely unexpected flavor profile.

Stephen
Your thought process and testing complexity are stuning- I really admire your commitment to your ideas.
I bow before a master.

Wow, I had been eagerly awaiting further info since you posted the Facebook on the sangria last week... I have decided that one night in the near future I will have to make it down there and happily place all of my drink decisions into your amazing hands!

Thanks for the kind words, I appreciate it!

Can't wait to see you when you come in...

Stephen, we are going to start charging to proof read your dissertation.

Stephen...

In regards to a couple of issues you mention...

What about the old stand by at the bar for foam? egg whites!

You could possibly also use spray dried egg white powder, it's pasteurized but has to be re-hydrated.

To get rid of the beet solids in the fresh beet juice, you could employ a technique called syneresis filtration.
The only draw back to this is that you may lose a bit of the stark red/purple color you'd traditionally associate with beets.
The filtration method tends to cut out most dominant colors, but maintains all the flavor.

The plus side of this technique is that it's done with everyday ingredients.

We currently employ this method at the Oakroom to make cocktail sauce consomme.

Give me a call or shoot me an email and I'll explain it.
Or hell, I'll just call you.

Next out the gate: A companion cocktail for our chocolate beet cake...

This one designed for two industry brethren, I forgot to ask if I could use thier names, so I won't.

1 oz Absolut Vanilla
1/2 oz Godiva Dark
splash beet juice

Really good!