(Author's note...please drink safely and responsibly and DO NOT DRINK AND DRIVE)
Today I have learned many lessons about infusions but not enough to tell you anything major, yet. I had a friend come into town a few days ago to help me move and he promptly took up residence on the couch in my new apartment. Being a fellow chef, I could see he had designs on the kitchen also and soon, it too was annexed. This was a happy sort of invasion that involved numerous bottles of liquor, fruit, spices, and fun. I soon learned a couple of things. First, though they seem miles apart in a restaurant, there is not a lot of difference between the bar and the kitchen. Second, the person who thought, "I like (insert booze of choice here) and I also like (insert almost ANYTHING else here)." is to be praised.
A good spirit does a lot of things. It makes you sing better, more confident, it even makes you look better. Okay, maybe it doesn't do all/any of those things but being a relatively neutral spirit, it does lend itself to a lot of things and is able to capture, if done correctly, the essence of things that are just dropped into it and left to sit for a while.
Infusing is not to be entered into lightly. One of the core pieces of advice that each recipe called for was starting with a cheaper brand of spirit so that you do not waste the good stuff or your time on mistakes. The distiller has done all the hard work and this is what we would call a "last mile" problem or an "after market" addition. Get good at it and then get the good stuff. Then there is the argument that the good stuff needs no modification, but in my humble opinion, the better the product, the better the result.
The major thing that I learned was that there is only a basic science to the whole thing. By that I mean that there is very little that you can't do and a lot of it depends on your tastes. When we look at all cooking and food related things, a lot of it is very subjective. My friend loves coffee, so he made an infusion of coffee beans using a roast from a large chain nearby. I have a manual pepper mill that he took upon himself to use to just barely crack the coffee beans and put into a mason jar and top off with vodka. He sealed it and and would shake it up every so often when he would walk into the kitchen.
Then, two days later, he strained the mixture through a coffee filter and voila; vodka that tastes like coffee. I had to add a little sugar to mine, but the now brownish opaque mixture, much like regular coffee or tea, this vodka was steeped in coffee. Vodka tastes like nothing to me, and by nothing, I mean that it has very little intrinsic characteristic. It does not taste like juniper berries like gin and do not get me started on tequila or rum. That is vodka's charm. I tend to drink it cold and straight, served neat (without ice). The same is true of moonshine for me.
I am not a liquor officianado, but that is what this post is all about. Did I mention that liquor makes you smarter? Well, after a few shots of this stuff I started getting smarter and more thoughtful....even philosophical.
Coffee vodka infusion led me to think about my old stomping grounds in NY and how much I craved a Cuban coffee and a Jamaican beef patty from the bodega on the corner. I added a little sugar to the shot and settled for a big thick sliced ham and cheese sandwich with lots of cheese and pickle and some red onion. Close enough? Not really, but it made me think about who I am here. I improvise.
There was a heady aroma of various things in my house and I dared not look at the mess in my semi new kitchen, but I began to think about how a good infusion is taking the best of what you like about something and adding it to another and creating something that is new yet still with the characteristics of both. This is what comes of drinking at noon in a new town.
Peaches! A lot of people do not know that South Carolina produces more peaches than Georgia, but Georgia has a more powerful marketing team. The peach infused moonshine made me want to go swimming for some reason, but not really swim, just be by a body of water. It was an overcast and there was a briskness to the day, but still, a sip of this made me think of summer. Ironically, I shivered at the thought of how hot it was going to be this summer. I took the shot and ate the ice cold peach that had been in the moonshine for a couple of days. I was tempted to grill the peaches. I was tempted to grill a lot of things.
Bacon! It had to be done. When I saw the bottle of bourbon on the table I knew there had to be something special waiting for me. Three pieces of thick cut bacon floating in a brown mason jar full of brown liquid. There was a meniscus of lard at the top of the jar when we took off the lid. This where I decided to take it to another level. Choices were being made. The bourbon was good enough. The bacon came through very well. Then I grabbed some blackberries and muddled them in the bottom of a glass and poured the mixture over it. I think this would be considered the entree drink.
I was out to create an infusion of my own; with my own life. I was beginning to think about how I, a little girl from New York, was going to bring new things to the south and, in turn, soak up what the south had to offer and make it my own and a part of me.
Finished the night with a vodka s'mores. I would have to say that of the bunch, this was my favorite, or maybe it was because I had four drinks prior to this one? I wanted to go camping after the first sip. I could smell oak fires burning and pine and though none of these things were in the vodka, the scents were just as real.
My friend doesn't think that I will last here. He jokingly tells me that the south will wear me down. I can already feel it beginning to seep into me. We are going to see how much I am able to absorb from creating this and all the talented people I am going to be working with. Think about what you absorb from the world around you!
