Make Your Own Hassle-Free “spirit” With a Flat Tonic
When I first heard that I would be spending all this time at home, I imagined evening cocktail hours in the bathroom, a lot of reading, and a sparkling clean apartment. But in what scientists call “predictable,” none of this actually happened.
I read some stuff and my apartment is fine , but I only drink one or two cocktails a week, mainly because my sensitive brain just can’t handle too much negativity and – I don’t know if you know about it. it’s alcohol – a depressant . (“Try weed,” you say? HA Did you deal with my anxiety?)
Anyway. Despite the bar cart full, I mostly drank liters of Diet Coke and lots of fresh squeezed lemonade (made with berry honey !), But I often crave a more complex drink, especially for my bath enjoyment. You may think that now come the hour when I’m talking to Seedlip , but I threw it away because it hurt me on an intuitive level, and since then I have been thinking about how to independently produce their own alcohol substitute without drinking.
If you remember the Seedlip Taste Test, there was general agreement that the product didn’t taste much on its own and that a really good tonic was more satisfying. In fact, when mixed with Seedlip, it was the tonic that became the basis of the silence, not the artificial alcohol. Later, when I discussed this with my friend Dan – you guys know Dan – he suggested that a “flat tree of fever” would be the best basis for non-alcoholic cocktails, and he was absolutely right.
Of course, some improvements had to be made. Just as I used my immersion circulation to make real gin , I decided to use it to make fake gin with tonic (thanks to sugar) and bitterness (thanks to quinine), and juniper berries will add that iconic gin flavor.
It can of course be tailored to your botanical preference (and what you have in your pantry). I used juniper, black pepper, lemon zest and bay leaf, but you can add cardamom, star anise, lavender, or any other part of the plant. I like the basic ratio of equal parts (four ounces each) of tonic to water, but you can decrease the tonic by a couple of ounces and increase the water if there is too much quinine. Throw it all in a bag and put it in a 178-degree water bath for just 15 minutes. If you have floral water (such as rose or orange blossom), add it to taste after completing the infusion step.
To make it you will need:
- 4 ounces of good tonic, flat (you can put some in a glass and stir to drive off the gas)
- 4 ounces of water
- 20 dried juniper berries
- 8 black peppercorns
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 strip of lemon zest
- 1 tbsp. A spoonful of rose water (optional)
Using a sous-vide circulating pump, bring the temperature in the water bath to 178 ℉. Add everything except rose water to a freezer bag or sous vide and secure the end overboard. Let the liquid sit for 15 minutes, then strain into a jar or bottle, add rose water and place this bottle in the refrigerator or ice bath to cool. (If you don’t have a sous-vide setup, you can toss the whole thing in a jar and let it steep slowly over a few days. Just try and strain when it’s as flavorful as you want it to be.)
When it’s cool, you can enjoy it on ice, with a little soda, or in a non-alcoholic cocktail. (Two ounces of fake gin with one ounce of fresh lemon juice and 3/4 ounce of honey syrup is good.) I drank it straight because I really, really love the taste of juniper.