Batches & Cookies

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You know the drill, empty your ice trays and refill. Can’t be doing with warm drinks.

Well, we’re officially locked down. Smart and attractive folk like the readers of this newsletter have probably been doing this for at least a week, so I hope your routines aren’t too affected and your doom spirals have been manageable.

If you haven’t got the time or emotional capacity to be reading all this, I’m doing some cocktail instructional vids over on the Manhattans Project instagram.

We all know cocktails are great, but right now, they might seem like a lot of effort. That’s ok. Let’s get some work in up front and have a delicious bottle of something waiting for us when we need it. 

Pop this on for some background, we’re batching some cocktails right now. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQaRQe86suA

Like when you’re cooking bigger quantities to freeze for later, we need to be mindful of quantities of ingredients. Somehow, what works for a single drink doesn’t work when scaled up (but other stuff can be easier). Here’s the things to be mindful when batching:

  • Use half the bitters you would imagine just multiplying the recipe up. So, if you’re used to adding two dashes of bitters to your old fashioned when you make it, and you want to make a batch of 10 old fashioneds (which will fit perfectly in an empty whisky bottle!), use just 10 dashes.
  • Don’t batch cocktails with citrus in unless you’re drinking them straight away. A jug of margarita is a wonderful thing, but that same mix is going to suck tomorrow. Citrus oxidises really quickly, so the flavour won’t work in batched drinks.
  • But! If you want to have citrus flavours (just not the acidity) you can make a very cool sounding oleo saccharum: just pop a bunch of citrus peels in a takeaway container with some caster sugar, leave for 24 hours and you’ve got crazy aromatic citrus syrup and sugar. You can then use it just like you would sugar syrup in drinks.
  • Salt is a great friend for batched drinks, and you should add it to just about any drinks you batch. It’s hard to add a small enough amount to an individual drink, but add just 1g of salt to our bottle of cocktail and it will _sing_.
  • Dilution! This is always tricky with home cocktails because your ice is straight form the freezer and too cold to dilute your drink, so we can get a real benefit here.

OK, here’s a couple of recommendations for getting a bottle of delicious cocktail ready to go when you move from the kitchen table to the sofa tonight. The recipes will all fit in a regular 700ml spirit bottle. Make sure to label them though.

These should be boozy enough to go straight in the freezer, too, without freezing.

Manhattan / Martinez (makes 10)

  • 450ml American Whiskey or Gin
  • 100ml Sweet Vermouth
  • 50ml Dry Vermouth
  • 10 dashes Angostura or Orange bitters
  • 1g salt
  • 70ml water

Martini

  • 500ml Gin
  • 100ml Dry Vermouth
  • 100ml Water (or 50ml water, 50ml Olive Brine)
  • 1g Salt

Some of you may think that’s too much vermouth, to which I say

Rum Old Fashioned

  • 500ml Gold/Dark rum
  • 20ml Treacle
  • 30ml Maple syrup
  • 10 Dashes Angostura
  • 1g salt
  • 100ml water

All of these can go in the freezer and be served icy cold at your convenience.

Oh, and if you also like cookies, go follow https://www.instagram.com/ahalfbakedidea/ for great baking tips.

Until next time, stay safe, like, subscribe and party on.

Felix