Colors of Fall: Orange
Continuing in my fall series, I wanted to create drinks that were wholly orthogonal to each other. In a course of drinks, each experience should be distinctive.
In my AB testing for this drink, I started with a butternut squash juice made by running fresh juice from the squash through a chemex filter. I do not suggest grilling the squash before making the juice. The resulting liquid has a clean, sweet, penetrating flavor of squash, and a pale orange color. I mixed it with Demerara 12 Year, brown sugar syrup, and a small measure of balsamic vinegar, and served it in a coupe glass rimmed with brown butter powder (see below).
The final product was intriguing but a little underwhelming. Although the butter brown powder was delicious as a "hook" for the concept, the flavor of the actual drink was average. The balsamic vinegar did add a nice contrast and dimension, but my competing concept was better.
Pumpkin Spice
1 oz Bourbon (Russell's Reserve)
.5 oz Vodka (Tito's)
1.5 oz Roasted Pumpkin Juice
1 Dash Simple Syrup
1 Dash Angostura Bitters
Shake over ice and double strain into a coupe glass.
Top with Pumpkin Spice Foam and Brown Butter Powder.
Whew, that's a lot to unpack. The combination of a foam, a powder, and a relatively complex may strike some as decadent or over the top. I assure you that it is. For this foam, I made a pumpkin spice mélange and mixed it into maple syrup, lemon, egg white, and xanthan gum. I have found that foams work much better with a little xanthan gum for stabilization. Moreover, xanthan gum can be dispersed in liquids much more easily if you first make a slurry of xanthan gum and a small amount of sugar. This recipe is approximate, as I made the foam to taste:
Pumpkin Spice Foam
100 ml egg whites
350 ml Maple Syrup
50 ml lemon juice
6 g pumpkin spice mélange (cinnamon, cardamom, black pepper, nutmeg, clove, star anise)
1 g Xanthan Gum in a slurry with 5g of white sugar
Combine lemon, maple syrup, and spice mélange.
Make a slurry of xanthan gum and sugar, and then disperse it into the maple syrup mixture.
Add the egg whites and then pour into an iSi Whipped Cream Canister.
Charge with two n02 cartridges and shake vigorously. Store in the fridge.
For the brown butter powder, I followed this recipe at Chefsteps:
Brown Butter Powder
225g Butter, unsalted
100g Tapioca Maltodextrin
20g Powdered sugar
2.5g Salt, kosher
Brown the butter, add the sugar and salt, and then combine in a food processor with tapioca maltodextrin.
By volume, this recipe made significantly more powder than I wanted. In the future, I will cut this recipe in half.
Roasted Pumpkin Juice
Cut a pumpkin into pieces, roast about 10% of it in the oven and then mash it into a purée.
Run the rest of it, raw, through a juicer, and blend the purée into the juice a little at a time, until you find a balanced flavor and a slightly thicker texture.
I'm sorry, it's hard to be more specific than that. When it's right, you'll know.
Next time I make it, I'll note the weights of raw vs. roasted pumpkin, and update this post. For now, I enjoy the idea of drinks which require a personal touch and an idiosyncratic treatment. If you prepare this drink, you will have to rely on your own senses, and you will end up with a creation which is a little bit more your own.
Cheers.