BENGALURU: Colours and looks play a major role in our everyday life. Visuals are a very important part of everything that is viewed. For instance, fruity drinks look attractive because they are very colourful, and herbal or spiced drinks look more earthy. The responsibility of balancing both the look and the taste of a drink, naturally falls on the mixologist, and a fine balance has to be found as too much fruitiness dilutes the alcohol and too much of spices will overpower the whole drink.
The challenge is to make an exceptional drink that also looks visually appealing. Quite often, fresh herbs can simply be muddled into the drink. Some drink recipes require an infusion into the base spirit, and you can always add flavour or colour to the drink. All these techniques are surprisingly easy, and you’ll be amazed at how simple it is to create fascinating drinks.
Here are a couple of my favourite recipes
ROSEMARY AND GIN GRAPEFRUIT COCKTAIL
Gin 60 ml (infused for minimum 1 hr with 5 gm cinnamon stick & 1 star anise)
Grapefruit juice
90 ml Lime juice 15 ml
Rosemary simple syrup 25 ml
Club soda to top up
Start by making the syrup by adding a few sprigs of rosemary to sugar syrup and bring to a boil, allow the mixture to cool with the rosemary still in.
Rim the glass with lime juice and salt. Stir the ingredients except soda in a mixing glass and stir with ice. Strain into the rimmed glass and top up with soda. Garnish with a grapefruit slice & rosemary sprig.
VODKA BEETROOT KAVAS
Infused Vodka 60 ml
Black salt 1 tsp
Lime juice 30 ml
Sugar syrup 30 ml
Soda 90 ml Ingredients for infused vodka
Vodka 300 ml Beetroots 100gm finely sliced
Carrots 100 gm finely sliced
Red chilli powder ½ tsp
Black peppercorns ½ tsp
Yellow mustard seeds ½ tsp
For infusing the vodka, put all the ingredients in a glass jar and keep it in a dry & cool place for 24 hrs. Strain the mixture into a bottle and place in the refrigerator where it can last for around a month.
Fill a tall glass with ice, add black salt, lime juice, sugar syrup & soda. Stir the mixture well and add the infused vodka on top. Garnish with lime slice & fresh mint sprig.
Vijay Purty
(The writer is senior mixologist - Foxtrot)