Over the last 4 years or so a few herbal or tea base liqueurs have began to appear on the market. Having tasted most of them, I can safely say that they come nowhere near the taste of homemade varieties. Tea syrups need to be relatively fresh, so we make them once a week and keep them in the fridge. This is the same for all our sugar syrups. The lovely thing about homemade sugar syrups is you don’t need any preservatives because if you do have some left over at the end of the week, throw it away and make some more, but a smaller amount. They are really cheap and easy to make.
Teas
I never do alcoholic infusions with teas (or spices for that matter). The alcohol always draws out bitter tannins which are not present in aqueous infusions. Alcoholic infusions are fine if you are making a bitters, which you intend to use dropwise, but in an ingredient you intend to use 10ml+ of, it is not going to work. The Chinese have know about distillation since the early 1100’s and have always only used tea with water, and they know a little bit about the subject.
There are many types of teas, but the main categories are white, yellow, green, red, black and flower teas. The different types are prepared in different ways, but I will not cover this here, as the method of production does not help us to understand why the teas taste the way they do, and I wish to talk about their uses in mixology.
Green Teas are the largest category of Chinese tea (which I consider to be the best), but they are pretty much all put into one collective pot (no pun intended) in the UK. Green teas are sold as such, and hardly ever have the actual name of the variety on the pack. There are a vast number of categories.
One particularly interesting subcategory is Oolong teas. These light green teas can have the most incredible fruit driven aroma, with peach at the forefront. Good Oolong tea is an amazing cocktail ingredient and is very versatile, having sufficient strength of flavour to go well with white and aged spirits. Oolong with a good 6-8 year old bourbon is absolutely delicious and a must try.
Another category is Puerh tea. Puerh teas are aged and have a strongly earthy taste that lends itself to blending with bitters and vermouths. In general I use 5-6 teabags or teaspoons of loose tea to make a bottle of syrup with green teas.
Red teas (the most common type in the UK although they are generally called black teas here) have more tannins than green, yellow or white teas. With distilled spirits, these tannins are more pronounced and can feel astringent on the palette. Red teas such as English Breakfast, Assam, Darjeeling etc. can still be used, but one needs to be careful with the length of time you leave the tea to infuse, and how much tea you use per bottle of syrup.
Flower teas are a very useful category, and in this I will include other flavoured teas. The majority have a red tea base, as red teas’ aroma does not fade with the addition of other flavours. However with some more delicate flavours, green tea is used as a base. Red Teas flavoured with rose or lychee flowers are very interesting and well worth playing around with, but probably the most well known flavoured red tea is Earl Grey. The strongly citrusy notes associated with bergamot make it ideal for mixing, especially with gin. This also goes for Lady Grey, although I find the orange and lemon notes added rather confected, and feel it would be better to use an orange and lemon twist with Earl Grey. Lapsang Souchong is a red tea which is dried over burning pine which imparts a strongly smoked flavour. This means it is an interesting partner for scotch, or for smokey martini twists. There are a couple of different flower teas made with green tea, and the main one of interest is Jasmine tea. Jasmine has a delightful exotic, floral nose and it blends beautifully with white and dark spirits, in particular gin and scotch.
Another category of flavoured teas is chai tea. Chai teas have spiced added, the most notable being cinnamon, but any blend will have at least 3 or 4 other spices in it. Chai teas can come in both green and red varieties. I tend to use the green, as the red varieties tend to have more tannins and as such do not blend as well. The spice notes go well in wintery or Christmas drinks.
Then there is the subject of herbal teas. There are myriad herbal tea blends on the marke,t far too many to cover here, but I will briefly touch on unblended teas, that is Camomile and Rooibos.
Camomile has a remarkable calming flavour and it is capable of cushioning the kick of some particularly strong tasting spirits. I once made a simple daiquiri with camomile tea gomme and Woods 100, and the resulting drink was surprisingly soft to drink. This works well in general with dark spirits, particularly rums and bourbons, served in short cocktails.
Rooibos or redbush tea is a lovely flavour, really nutty with a sweetness before any sugar is added. I personally think it tastes great with peppery tastes, particularly peppery vodkas, and with strawberry or passionfruit, but as always have a play around.
Spices
For anyone who thinks spices are expensive, please know that that is what Sainsbury’s and Tesco would have us believe. I buy my vanilla online from an company called Oakleaf European, and a pod works out at about 30p, meaning that a 700ml bottle of homemade Madagascan Vanilla gomme costs under £2, about the same as a bottle of Roses Lime Cordial (which I do hope you are making for yourselves now with the recipe from the last issue of Class). For other spices I use a company called Spice Master, and they are very cheap and the products are great. A kilo of Cinnamon quills is £11, or about 10p each which means that the Tatanka should be going on menus everywhere. (Zubrowka and pressed apple with a cinnamon quill stirrer if you didn’t know)
Not all spices work well in cocktails. Many simply do not taste good with alcohol, such as mustard and garlic. A tiny hint of garlic in any savoury dish will act as a brilliant flavour enhancer, whilst the garlic will be almost impossible to pick out, but in an alcoholic drink the garlic is always present and conspicuously so.
In general I find that spices which need some maceration time to release their flavour are those best suited to gommes. This would include Allspice, Cinnamon, Clove, cardamom, star anise, vanilla, and I’m sure a few more. Others such as ginger and lemongrass release their flavour with a bit of muddling or shaking, and as such are best used fresh in my opinion, along with nutmeg and pepper, whose taste goes stale once they have been ground. I would also suggest that herbs should always be used fresh.
For Herbs, I have found that using fresh herbs tends to have the best results, as they release enough of their flavour immediately. This is the case for basil, thyme, mint and coriander.
When making my spice gommes, I tend to do it on the stove, as it is the best way to infuse the flavours, by cooking for around 10 minutes. I only add a small amount of the sugar for this cooking period, so as not to caramelise the sugar at all. By cooking the gommes, they are also sterile, so this helps them keep for a little longer. We also store them in the fridge.
Another point to raise is to always use whole spices. Ground ones never have as fresh a taste, and will make a much darker and cloudier gomme, which never looks good in a drink.
When making the gommes, remember that spices are very strong flavours, so we do not need to use a lot to flavour the gomme. We are also cooking the spice for 10 minutes and so are extracting most of the flavour. In general, I would suggest the following amounts per bottle of gomme.
Cinnamon – 2 large quills (or 4 short ones)
Cardamom – 6 pods
Star Anise – 6
All Spice – 15 berries
Clove – 10
Vanilla – 3 pods, split
I use the same method to make all the above into syrups. One thing to note is if you like some of these flavours together, simply add both spices to the gomme. I have a lovely recipe for spiced caramel which is great in winter drinks which I will give at the end.
Method
Put 400ml of water and 50g of sugar in a pan with the spices. Bring to the boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Add a further 300g of sugar, stir to dissolve and then take off the heat. Allow to cool and then strain through fine muslin.
Spiced Caramel Syrup
350g sugar
500ml water
3 split vanilla pods
2 short cinnamon quills
6 cloves
Place all the above in a pan. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30mins until golden brown. Strain and pour into a 700ml bottle and top up with water.
This is a great ingredient for Xmas or winter drinks. Try it with red wine, orange slices and blackcurrants for an awesome mulled wine, or as the sweetener in an eggnog.
As always with anything I write here, have a play around and do something different. It is a whole lot of fun, and that is what mixology should be about. Try making your own Falernum, or a cinnamon cardamom and star anise gomme (a lovely match for a fruity cognac). You are only limited by your imagination.
Resources
www.innteas.com (for great oolong tea)
www.spice-master.com
www.oakleaf-european.co.uk
