Óla, Friends of Cocktails. Today we’re finally making the
national drink of Brazil, the Caipirinha. It’s been a highly requested cocktail,
especially for the summer. Plus, some of you wanted to see
my riff on it. So we’ll do both - first the classic Caipirinha, with
Cachaça, lime and sugar, then a Cocktail Time version,
incorporating interesting flavors, with a fun and interactive presentation
you probably haven’t seen before. And if you’re thinking:
"This will take too long for my busy schedule." I’ve got great news - we started uploading
shorter and quicker Cocktail Time recipes to TikTok and YouTube shorts. Follow
along there if that’s what you prefer. But if you’re… old fashioned, make sure you’re subscribed,
and I’ll show you how to make 2 Caipirinhas. It’s Cocktail Time. Caipirinha is a traditional Brazilian
cocktail made by muddling limes with sugar, then adding Cachaça and ice.
Cachaça is often called Brazilian rum, since it’s made from sugarcane, but rum is mostly
made from sugar by-products, like molasses, while cachaça is distilled
from fermented sugar cane juice. It’s less refined and retains more
of the aroma and flavor of the sugar cane. The term you’ll often hear
to describe it is "grassy". For sugar I’m using unrefined cane
sugar. If your sugar isn’t fine enough a well-cleaned spice grinder or even
a mortar and pestle will do the job. Crushed ice is often used for this drink, which
has its advantages, but from what I could find, ice cubes are usually called for in Brazil,
and sometimes it’s even a shaken cocktail. But we’ll build it in the
glass, starting with lime. Cut off the ends and half it lengthwise.
Then cut out this middle, bitter part, before quartering 1 half and
placing the lime in the glass. Add two bar-spoons of superfine
unrefined sugar, covering the limes. Muddle the limes to extract
the juice and essential oils, soaking and dissolving the sugar in the process.
Then add 60 ml, or 2 oz, of Cachaça. Depending on what style you use your Caipirinha will be
either classic, especial, or luxo. Fill the glass with ice and stir with a barspoon,
chiling and mixing all of the ingredients, and you’ll end up with something special indeed.
Top the glass with a bit more ice and an optional lime wedge, if the patron
wishes to add more lime juice later. Making the Cocktail Time version of
this drink will be a thirsty business, so let’s first take a sip of this.
Aroma lets you know this will be citrusy and refreshing. You can even
pick up the aforementioned grassy notes before you take the first sip. It’s incredibly balanced
for a drink made like this. Aromatic, vegetal, citrusy and perfect
for a hot summer day, especially in Brazil. There's a good reason they crowned this
as their national drink. It’s delicious. So should one even make an elevated
version of this national pride? Inspired by their state motto of "Ordem
e Progresso" I decided to give it a go. Here are the ingredients I’ll use.
Cachaça, sugar, and lime are all in there, but we played around with molecular gastronomy
and added a few ingredients as well. Looking for ways to play on the vegetal notes
of cachaça I turned to Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold and found a technique
he calls Justino. It’s a way to incorporate flavors of fruits or vegetables into spirits,
but still keep them clear. He achieves this by blending, adding an
enzyme to break down the pectin, then centrifuging the mixture until clear. This is
a perfect way to mix cachaça with red cabbage. We don’t have a centrifuge on set yet but we can
still make it work. I’ll show you how in a minute. Lime & sugar will be added on top
in the form of a liquid sphere. And I’ll spray it all with some lavender
perfume. This is super simple to make. So let’s see how I got to this point, before we make my version of the Caipirinha.
To make the Red Cabbage Justino we’ll need Cachaca, red cabbage, which we’ll dehydrate, so
we can control the amount of dilution ourselves, and pectinex, which will break down the pectin
in the cabbage as we blend it all together. Start by cutting the cabbage thinly then
spreading it out evenly to dehydrate it, using your prefered method. An oven or
a dehydrator could work, but I’m using the power of this summer heat. Cabbage liquid
wouldn’t be good in this so make sure it’s fully dehydrated before you move on to the next step.
That is to place our ingredients in the blender, starting with 22,5 g of dehydrated red
cabbage. To that add 100 g of water, which will rehydrate the cabbage
and make sure our yield isn’t too small. But the base is of course Cachaça,
so add 300 ml, or 10 oz. And lastly, Pectinex, 0.6 g of the enzyme
that can help you clarify all fruit and vegetable juices with pectin.
Rinse it all out. Blend everything for long enough to feel the
spinning blades heat up the liquid inside. The higher temperature will help
with the clarification process. Time and pectinex will now do it’s thing,
so leave it for about an hour or so. Then all you have to do is strain the liquid.
I placed a muslin cloth on a potato ricer, which will give me the option to squeeze out all of the
liquid from the red cabbage, making sure we’re not leaving Cachça on the filter. The first liquid coming through is usually a bit cloudy still,
so I’m transferring this coffee filter and re-filter that again. Once everything is filtered your Red
Cabbage Justino is ready to be used. As for the lime and sugar, we’re making liquid
spheres, for which we’ll first make a cordial. It's a process similar to making super juice
I’ll first make oleo citrate, so in a jar place 18 g of lime peels, followed by 6.15 g of citric acid
and 3.07 gram of malic acid. You see the ratios are different than with super juice.
Muddle a bit and let sit for about an hour. Once the acids pull out the essential oils from
the peels, place everything we need in a blender, starting with the oleo citrate. Rinse the
jar with water we’re adding anyway, 240 ml, or 8 oz in total.
Then add the lime juice - 45 ml, or 1.5 oz. And lastly, sugar, since we’re making a cordial.
123 grams. Blend for 30 to 40 seconds, to dissolve the sugar, then filter out the peels. That’s your lime cordial ready. If you
want to make a Gimlet, set some aside. But for the reverse spherification we’ll
need to add calcium salt to the cordial. Once we drop this mixture into an
alginate bath it will cause the liquid to draw itself into a spherical shape and
become encapsulated by the gel-like membrane. So pour the cordial back into the blender
and weigh how much you have. Then add Calcium Lactate - 3% weight
of the cordial. For me that’s 11.2 g. Blend thoroughly, to dissolve the powder
before pouring 30 ml of this mixture into separate molds. Don’t worry about the shape,
you just want it to hold at least 30 ml, or 1 oz. Since this is not viscous enough
to form nice spheres in the sodium alginate bath we need to freeze it. I already did, half of this mold, to speed up our process.
Once you have your cordial hardened you’ll need 3 baths for our reverse spherification process.
The first will be the water and sodium alginate mix, which makes this all possible. And that’s really where
you’ll want to start this whole process, because once you blend together 1 liter of water
with 5 grams of sodium alginate you’ll leave this to sit in the fridge until there are no more air bubbles
and it becomes clear again. I left it in the fridge for 24 hours. Before I then add it to the first bowl I’ll heat it up slightly,
to about 50°C, or 120°F, which will help the solidified cordial to
melt and form a sphere, once we drop it in. The other two bowls are filled with just water.
Then comes the fun part. Transfering the cordial from the molds, into the sodium alginate mix,
moving it around slightly, so it forms a sphere and leaving it in there for about 3 minutes. Then
transfer the spheres into the 2nd and 3rd bath, finally ending with lime cordial in a membrane of
lime cordial. Geeky stuff, but still pretty cool, right? Do that for all of the Calcium Lactate Cordial
mix, moving them carefully from one bath to the next and into separate containers,
just in case. I’ll of course leave links to both Calcium Lactate and Sodium Alginate
in the description. And lastly, the easiest part, lavender perfume. Just mix 30 ml, or 1 oz,
of vodka with 4 drops of organic lavender essential oil. Shake well to mix and that’s it. So we’re back here,
ready to first mix the Justino, Sake and saline solution. I’ll start by chilling the mixing glass, while the
clear, large ice cube is already tempering. To make a small dent on top of the cube for
the cordial sphere I’ll use the back of a spoon and a torch. The ice cube will then
chill the glass as we make the cocktail. Start by adding 45 ml, or 1.5 oz, of
our red cabbage justino. This of course already has Cachaça in it.
Next, 15 ml, or 0.5 oz, of Sake. It will pair nicely with vegetal notes
of the justino, but it’s also fitting to use it, since the largest Japanese population outside
of their country is located in Brazil. And to enhance the flavors in this cocktail,
add 2 drops of 20% saline solution. Add plenty of ice and stir to chill & dilute.
Then strain the cocktail into the glass, next to the clear ice block.
Once you’re done place 1 cordial sphere carefully on the same ice cube.
And for some floral fragrance, lavender plus a few sprays of lavender perfume.
Lastly, as you serve, place a small cocktail pick in the glass, for the cordial.
Here’s why. As the guest pierces the cordial sphere
it leaches out and throughout your drink, slowly sinking to the bottom, but also
mixing with the spirit. More importantly, the guest sees the interesting
phenomenon of the drink changing color from purple to red. Acdis in the cordial can do
that to red cabbage. Interesting, right? Lavender aroma hits first, but you can
also pick out lime and red cabbage. On the palate, an explosion of flavors. Grassy
Cachaça works incredibly well with red cabbage, complementing the freshness of Sake and the lime
cordial. A subtle peppery undertone of cachaça leaves an almost vegetal aftertaste, and
you’ll dive right in for another sip. A lot of work.. maybe. But that’s how you
make progress, right? And after a sip… everything is in order.
Saúde, Friends of Cocktails.
