Right then ladies and gents. Time for another #MasterofCocktails – this week we’re making a cognac-sour/sidecar sort of affair. We’re making it with Yuzu Juice. If you’ve not had it before it’s sort of lemon/limey, but much more aromatic and potent. You can get it online using the power of googles.
There’s a tiny bit of prep to do a couple hours before we make this one – we need to sugar-rim our glasses…
Do this by running a dash of curacao round them:
Then dunking into a plateful of golden caster sugar:
This is what we’re aiming for. Now give it a couple of hours to set up rock-solid.
And so, on to the cocktail…
You’ll be needing these…
List of Ingredients
- Golden Caster Sugar
- A Lemon (garnish)
- Lemongrass Stalk
- 10ml of Yuzu Juice
- 5ml of Akashi-Tai Shiraume Umeshu
- 40ml of Lemongrass Stalk-infused Hine Rare VSOP Cognac (check out the bottom of last week’s blog to see how to make this…)
- 20ml of Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao
- A couple flakes of Sea Salt
So – to start, take the glasses that you prepared earlier, and bang them in the freezer to chill.
Now remove your lemongrass from the Cognac we set infusing last week…
Measure out 40ml, and add to a Boston shaker with a handful of ice.
Next, 20ml of the wonderful Pierre Ferrand Dry Curaçao.
Followed by 10ml of your Yuzu Juice.
Now I’m not 100% on this, but my feeling is that there’s quite a lot of oil in this, given the relative opacity and bitterness. This follows, as Yuzus are quite ‘juice-poor’, so I can believe there’s quite a lot of collateral skin oil. This is definitely a good thing – it adds to the aromatic nature of the drink, but we do want to balance it.
For that reason, I’m going to add literally a couple of flakes of Maldon Sea Salt. You won’t even be able to perceive the salt in this drink, but it has an amazing balancing effect.
Final ingredient is 5ml Akashi-Tai Shiraume Umeshu (Plum-infused Sake Liqueur):
Now shake for 20-30 seconds…
Prepare a lemon-zest garnish:
Double-strain into your coupette…
Attach the garnish to the drink using the power of mini-hipster-clothes-pegs.
And serve. Think we’ll call this; Fair yuzu has a posse.
Enjoy!
Here’s the ingredients for next week’s #MasterofCocktails, and if they look like anything other than ‘THE drink of this summer’ to you, you’re wrong. You can use whatever cacao nibs you want, just as long as they’re raw (unroasted).
Next week, you’ll be needing these…
Rumbullion! XO 15 Years Old spiced rum, Cacao Nibs and Coconut Water.
Ben
