Hi, Friends of Cocktails,
and welcome to 2023. A New Year is always a chance to try
and to learn new things. And Dry January has been a growing trend
for the last couple of years. And so has the popularity of non-alcoholic
spirits and cocktails. But they can be hard to find
and quite expensive. So I thought it would be fun to have a look
at how you can make homemade ingredients to create the best mocktails for anyone that
wants to -, or has to avoid alcohol. We’ll make zero-proof spirits,
liqueurs, amari, and of course, cocktails. But today we’re starting with
alcohol-free bitters. Aromatic and orange are
the obvious choice, right? We’ll try different methods
to make them both. This journey will be a learning experience
for me as well, since I’m not as proficient in the zero-proof world as I’d like to be. But I’ve got a great resource right here.
I’ll show you more in a second. If you’d like to see and learn about a
different approach to zero-proof cocktails make sure you hit the like button
and subscribe. Then let’s start the journey together. It’s… Mocktail time? Whatever the reason might be for you, or somebody
in your life to opt for non-alcoholic drinks, there’s still a rich world
of mixology to explore. And there’s no better way to dive in
than with this book, "Zero: A New Approach
to Non-Alcoholic Drinks". Written by the culinary team of Chicago’s
Alinea, a three-Michelin-star restaurant, the book offers countless insights into
beverage design, with a unique perspective on creating non-alcoholic substitutes
for your cocktails. Just like the other famous book from the
same authors, the Aviary Cocktail Book, it’s not the easiest book to find, and it’s
certainly not the cheapest cocktail book either, but if you enjoy exploring new flavors,
creating ingredients yourself and are looking into the world of
zero-proof mixology, this is your Bible. You’ll get over 250 pages
and nearly 100 unique recipes. Or let me know in the comments that you’d
love to see me explore these recipes and we’ll do that together. So how do we make non-alcoholic bitters,
if alcohol is what extracts the most potent botanical flavors from
fruits, nuts, vegetables and roots? As anyone who enjoys tea knows: hot water
can do a pretty good job also. But there’s something better - glycerine. Also known as glycerol, it’s a clear, colorless,
and odorless liquid with a sweet taste and a consistency of thick syrup. It has a ton of uses in the food-
and other industries. We’ll use it because it’s a great solvent
for extractions without the use of alcohol. I’ll leave a link where you can find it, but also tell you about what you
can use as a substitute. We’ve done homemade bitters before on this
channel, we know how crucial they are to making a great cocktail, and we’ve seen
they can be made in a variety of ways. Today we’ll make aromatic and orange bitters, which are usually the first kinds of bitters
when you’re stocking up your bar. I think it makes sense to take the same
approach for a zero-proof version. As mentioned we’ll make the bitters two
different ways - Aromatic in a sous vide, which is my preferred method, followed
by orange bitters in a saucepan. The book gives both options for orange bitters, but
just the saucepan option for the aromatic bitters. I’ve tested multiple batches and techniques,
and found that I prefer the sous vide method for Aromatic bitters as well. I’ve also taken the liberty to change
the recipe slightly, to my taste. Here’s what you’ll need. The base will be water and glycerine, but you can add caramelized sugar
in place of our solvent. The flavoring agents are cloves, ceylon cinnamon,
star anise, dried orange peels, nutmeg, green cardamom, powdered ginger, allspice berries,
black pepper, vanilla and tonka bean. If you can’t get tonka bean just double
the amount of vanilla. For the bittering agents we’re using
cinchona bark and gentian root. And just as a final, visual touch, a few
drops of caramel coloring. We used this to make homemade cola as well. If you’re using sugar instead of glycerine
and making these in a saucepan you’ll caramelize the sugar first, then toast
all the botanicals for 10 seconds before adding the water and
simmering for 1 hour. But like mentioned, I got better results Ž
with glycerine and a sous vide. Let’s start by crushing some of the botanicals so they’ll release as much
flavor compounds as possible. I’m adding 20g of ceylon cinnamon, 5.5g of
star anise, 3g nutmeg, 6g green cardamom pods, 4g allspice berries, 1.5g black pepper,
and 4g of tonka bean. Grind all that we added, really making sure
everything in there gets equal treatment. Cinnamon is guarding some of the smaller
ingredients so I'll get that out of the way and ground some more. Once you're happy with that transfer everything
into a sous vide bag. Follow with the rest of the ingredients, including
15g of cloves, 7g of dried orange peels, 4g of ground ginger, 1.2g of a vanilla bean,
cut open lengthwise. Throw it in the bag, clean up as you go, and
add the bittering agents - 10g of cinchona bark,
and 10g of gentian root. You’ll find most of the ingredients in a
well-stocked supermarket, but you’ll probably have to
turn to amazon for some. Lastly, pour in our solvents - 50g of glycerine
and 500g of water. And like mentioned you can add 20g
of caramelized sugar in place of glycerine. To see how I make caramelized sugar
check out the homemade cola episode. Carefully vacuum seal the bag,
as always go for the double seal, then place it in the sous vide bath
set to 90 °C, or 195°F, for 1 hour. This process will give us flavorful bitters but the lack of alcohol also means
a shorter shelf life for the bitters. We’ll talk about this in the future as we
try different non-alcoholic ingredients. After 1 hour take the bag out and
let it chill to room temperature before opening and straining the contents. You can speed this up by
placing it in an ice bath. Use a cloth filter to strain the bitters. Once it's mostly filtered I like to put
the filter and everything on it into a potato ricer, to squeeze out
all of the flavors from the solids. Then strain again through a coffee filter,
to catch the smaller sediments, but the bitters still won’t turn out completely clear. During the R&D phase I tried adding pectinex,
0.2% of total weight of the liquid, and while the result was clearer, it still wasn’t
perfect so it’s not worth the extra step. But if you’re using sugar instead of glycerine
the pectinex clarification might work better. Like I said, I’m learning too. For the sake of faster shooting of the episode
we're not waiting for everything to filter, but I'll just move on with what has filtered
by now, and let the rest continue on the side. At this point I’ll add some caramel coloring, to make the bitters closer to what
Angostura Aromatic Bitters look like. 7 drops per 100 ml of bitters. This doesn’t add any taste,
it’s purely for presentation. Bottle and store in the fridge
for up to a week or two, then it will lose the intensity of the flavors. Glycerine is a natural preservative, but we
didn’t add enough to work that way. A great hack is to split the bitters in small
batches and place them in the freezer. That way they’ll be good for several months. With aromatic bitters done
we can move on to orange bitters and the second method of the day,
cooking in a saucepan. This will actually be a 4th different way
we’ll make bitters on the channel - we’ve of course used sous vide just now,
but also for the Allspice bitters; we originally made orange bitter the old fashioned
way by leaving a mason jar on the countertop for a few weeks; and we made
rapid-infused Winter Spice bitters with the help of nitrous oxide
and a cream whipper. And here’s what you’ll need to make non-alcoholic
orange bitters in a saucepan. The solvents and the bittering agents are
the same - water, glycerine, cinchona bark, and gentian root. If you don’t have glycerine
use honey this time. For flavoring agents I’m using
coriander, orange peels, cloves, cardamom, star anise, and caraway. If you’ll use a sous vide follow the same
procedure as with Aromatic bitters. Here everything will go into the pot
and cook for an hour. Again start with the mortar and pestle and
crush 4g of star anise, 5g of cardamom pods, before adding to the saucepan. Follow with everything else - 40g of orange
peels, 15g of coriander, 2g of cloves, 1.5g of caraway and the bittering agents - thistime only 4g of cinchona bark
and 25g of gentian root. The glycerine and water amounts are
the same as before - 50g and 500g. In place of glycerine you can use 30g of honey. Bring the mixture to a boil over high heat,
stirring to mix everything nicely. Then cover the pot and reduce the heat to
maintain a slow simmer for 1 hour. So the same time frame as with the sous vide, but much harder to control the right
temperature throughout the process. Once you’re done remove from the heat and
leave to cool completely. Then it’s the same process as before - strain,
press, and strain again. If you're still in a rush, move the filter
and keep going. Again you have the option of trying
additional clarification with pectinex, to get clearer looking bitters. As you’ll often hear with these homemade
ingredients - store in the fridge and use as soon as possible.
Or split up and place in the freezer. So, now we need a zero-proof Bourbon and we
can make an Old Fashioned mocktail, right? That’s actually what we’ll do for the
next time we’re doing a non-alcoholic episode. If that’s something you look forward to,
let me know in the comments. Today we’ll use these bitters to make two
easy-to-build drinks - soda & orange bitters in one glass and a tonic & bitters in the
other, basically making an aromatic tonic. Just like typical bitters these are
too potent to enjoy on their own, so mixing them into a light, subtle 0 proof
cocktail is the perfect way to see how well we pulled this off. I’ll mix orange bitters with some club soda
and a little honey syrup. It depends on your glass, but I’m going
for a little under 7 oz or about 200mL of soda water, with 0.25 oz
or 7,5mL of simple syrup and 6 good dashes of our
non-alcoholic orange bitters. And a Cocktail Time staple -
2 drops of saline solution, to really enhance the citrus notes in our cocktail. Lift everything with a barspoon to gently mix
the ingredients and garnish with a lemon wedge. That way you can add more acidity later,
if you want. As for our own aromatic tonic you
could make it completely homemade by making your own tonic syrup, but here
I have a bottle of Fever Tree tonic. This is exactly 200 ml or 6.8 oz. Then we go straight in with
the aromatic bitters - 6 dashes. Fever Tree actually sells an Aromatic Tonic,
but there’s something special about adding the rich spices of the bitters yourself, and
this time without any alcohol. And like before, 2 drops
of 20% saline solution. For this one I’m adding a lime wedge.
Beautiful. Dry January, sober October, being on the wagon,
pregnancy, religion, health reasons, being underage or just a personal decision - whatever your reason may be for looking
into mocktails - here’s to you. Cheers. Soda and bitters is one of my favorite ways
to make a simple and refreshing drink by adding a little complexity. Fresh citrus notes
of lemon and orange transition nicely into the balanced mix of the bitters and sugar. If you want it with more acidity just squeeze
the lemon wedge and give it a little stir. All in all, a subtle sipper, but you still
get wonderful botanicals from the bitters. As for the tonic, you get aromatic spices
with lime freshness on the nose. Interestingly our homemade zero ABV aromatic
bitters give the tonic a subtle cola undertone, pairing it nicely with the bitterness
of the tonic. It definitely enriches the experience, and you go further by adding a splash
of fresh lime juice from the garnish. Both of these bitters are standing up
to the task, even without alcohol to extract and bolster their flavors. Both bitters try to overcome the lack
of heat that comes from the alcohol with a sharper bitterness
that stays on the aftertaste. For a 0% ABV alternative these work great. I look forward to finding
more ways to use them. If you have any ideas please share them below. And I have to say, it’s a different feeling
ending an episode without a drop of alcohol. If you’re partaking in Dry January I hope
this gives you something fun to try out. Here on Cocktail Time it will be just a dry
week, not month. Next week we’ll make a cocktail with another
super interesting homemade ingredient. I’ll see you then. Cheers, Friends
of Cocktails and Mocktails alike!
