Make a Customized Nitric Oxide Liqueur
Giving homemade liqueurs is my favorite party trick. They are fun to set up, inexpensive to make and – if you have a whisk siphon – very easy to put together at the last minute.
Aside from trendy restaurants and Blumenthal fanatics’ cuisines, nitrogen-infused creams are best known for providing a short-lived “party.” You shouldn’t use them for this, but you should use them to make flavored, bespoke spirits in less than 20 minutes.
Making liquor is a simple process. You simply take a base alcohol of at least 40% ABV, infuse it with the aromatic root, fruit, or zest ( using this method from Gizmodo ), then dilute it with an equal amount of syrup to bring it to the ABV range. liqueur – about 20%. If you don’t have a whisk siphon, the infusion phase takes a long wait, but the iSi Canister and its chargers make it a leisurely afternoon project. Here’s how to do it:
- Add a cup of booze to the siphon. Vodka is a good neutral option, but you can use rum, tequila, or whatever you like. You can also use grain alcohol, you just need to thin it a little.
- Collect your flavors. There are no hard and fast rules as to how much of what you should add, but I usually use at least a cup of chopped fruit or puree or whole citrus zest for every cup of alcohol. For herbs, usually one or two twigs do this, but keep in mind that softer herbs infuse more quickly than hard, woody ones. For my Meyer Blueberry Lemon Liqueur (pictured above), I used one cup of roughly mashed blueberries and the zest of one Meyer lemon. For my ginger and honey liqueur, I used a 2-inch chopped piece of ginger.
- Close the siphon and charge it with one of the whips . Wait a minute. Remove this charger and screw on the new one. Shake the siphon gently for a minute. Depressurize the canister by gently squeezing the iSi trigger. Remove the lid, let the remaining nitrous oxide drain out and give it a taste.
- If it’s not flavorful enough, toss in a few more ingredients and repeat steps 2 and 3. When you have strong drinking water, strain the solids through a sieve, then strain the finer particles with a cheese cloth.
- Now you need to dilute with syrup. Depending on your flavor profile, this syrup can be made with plain table sugar, turbinado sugar, honey, or agave. For granulated sugar, make a syrup with equal parts sugar and water; for already syrupy sugars, use a ratio of two parts honey or agave to one part water. Since you are reducing the alcohol strength to 20% (half of our initial strength), you will need the same amount of syrup as you insisted on the alcohol. (So, if you have a cup of infused vodka or whatever, you’ll need a cup of syrup.) Mix the syrup with the liqueur, pour it into a pretty bottle, and either give it away as a very thoughtful gift or leave it. for yourself.
The quick nature of these infusions means you can play around with tons of flavors in a very short amount of time, creating your own unique liqueurs and tweaking them until they are exactly what you like. When it comes to sugars, remember not only the taste, but also the appearance. Honey can add depth and moderate spice, so I use it in my ginger liqueur, but it will darken your final product. Some liqueurs, such as blueberry and lemon, are quite pretty and it would be a shame to cover them with dark syrup, so use plain white sugar for brighter batches. After chilling the liqueur, use it in cocktails or mix with seltzer for a light, trendy adult drink.