Skip to main content

Barrel Aged Mai Tai - Batch II

So we tried to do the barrel aged Mai Tai in an 1l barrel - and the taste was really good. The only problem was, that the leftovers, of "diverse angel shares" were... not worth the effort. What angel share you ask? Well, first the barrel was leaking out of the spigot. It was leaking slow and sticky - but anyway.
Another serious reason for the angel share was the tasting [sorry!]. 
This cocktail really has to be seriously tasted. This is ok for a large barrel, but for one liter barrel, it is a real problem...

Anyway - batch no.2 is on its way. I did some amendments:
I was always curious, why "Trader Vic" called for a dollop of French garnier orgeat in his original Mai Tai recipe. Almond syrup and dollop doesn't really properly align in my sense. But then it stroke me: what is orgeat: a syrup made from almonds, sugar and often a hydrosol [usually orange flower water]and water... guess which ingredient has all ingredients except of the water? Yes - marzipan. And yes, I can for sure imagine a dollop of marzipan. Even if Vic didn't used marzipan - or something very similar, we can use it - different than almond syrup, you can find marzipan in different qualities - inclusive whole natural [even organic] qualities.

In my original batch, I used also Cointreau. While this brand is great [and it is aged anyway, which leads "magically" to the required orange curacao], I still had a couple of bottles of Marie Brizard orange curacao laying around. And why not using it?

And instead of preparing rock candy syrup, I will go the easy route and use directly caster sugar [and half dissolve it with the liquors.

That is all about. 

The rest what we do is: waiting! It will be a 5 liter barrel - so it will definitely need longer than the 6 weeks of the 1l barrel. We will see...

I will post some pictures and more information later.

Any comments?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to use citric acid - and why you might not want to use it anyway!

To be honest, I shied away of this topic, because I think, people can misinterpret this - big time. I don't want to be part of the problem - I want to be part of the solution!  But when Chris, over at A Bar Above  discussed this subject- I literally could not resist to join into "the discussion". Here is the video: I - however take a bit slower approach than Chris. What is citric acid? Chemical Compound Citric acid is a weak organic acid with the formula C6H8O7. It is a natural preservative/conservative and is also used to add an acidic or sour taste to foods and drinks. Wikipedia Formula: C6H8O7 Molar Mass: 192.124 g/mol Melting Point: 153C Density: 1.66 g/cm3 Boiling point: 175C Soluble in: Water Why is it controversial? In my "mixology world" it is controversial, as citric acid is the stuff, which makes the nightmarish sour mix [ preferably in powder form ] sour. Yeah - citric acid is the main ingredient in one of the most

Agar-Agar Clarification

Not often, I am posting here things, which are clearly not my ideas... However Dave Arnold is clearly a mad scientist [no, he really is!] - and he posted amazing stuff on his website www.cookingissues.com - no - don't click now - just follow the link later. One of the most impressive posts about mixology, besides of demystifying the mechanics of shaking, were clarification techniques. Look, after him, you could use a centrifuge [which would set you back a couple thousand bucks] and a chemical compound, which solidifies sediments. I am not a fan of that. Then there is gelatine clarification; this works quite well [I tried it several times my self] - you gelatinize a liquid [with little gelatine only], freeze it, thaw it [in the fridge] over a colander and a muslin cloth. Thats it. Unfortunately this has several problems: Gelatine is made out of animal bones - hence it is neither vegetarian nor vegan, which you won't usually expect of a beverage. You have to freez

King Robert II Vodka

Who would knew, that I am reviewing a budget vodka here - on the opinionatedalchemist.com. But this isn't a normal review. I skip the marketing perception and use this product to cut directly to the case: Vodka is a "rather" neutral, colorless, "rather" flavorless and odorless distilled beverage from any agricultural source - and depending on the country, it has a minimum of 37.5% and 40% abv. As I said time and time again before: at times it is absolutely nonsense to talk about premium and luxury, when the original product doesn't really "hold this promise". Luxury water can have luxurious marketing, luxurious packaging, can be even rare and slightly more expensive "to produce". However really it is just water. Maybe it has some nuances to normal water - however those nuances (in a blind-test) are pretty small. Vodka is extremely similar - and the chain of evidence (despite a lot of people trying to proof otherwise) makes it re