Latest / Into The Barchive / Floral Cocktails: From Medicine to Modern Mixology
Transcript
- Nashville Drinks: To the Barkeye Where the past came Welcome to Welcome in Barkivist to this week's episode of Into the Barkai. As we head deeper into spring, there's a particular category of cocktails that always seems to reappear on menus and in home bars. Floral cocktails. Yep. And for some people, that phrase alone can ring alarm bells. To me, I soapy cocktails. Yeah, I mean, for some people, they think it's too perfumey or cloyingly sweet. But historically, flowers weren't added to drinks to make them pretty. They were added to make them functional. I can't wait for you to tell me more. Yep, because long before, we thought about cocktails as recipes, flowers were used as flavoring agents, preservatives, and medicine. They lived at the crossroads of apothecaries, monasteries, and kitchens. What we're really talking about today isn't some modern trend for the latest spring seasonal menu, but it's a very old idea reemerging. and a modern glass. Blake, it's time to get to the bar for you to show me what you mean. I say let's get mixing. Let's do it. So for our first cocktail, we're going to make a drink called a Silk Sheets. And so we're going to, into the small tin of our shaker, take two ounces of Citron vodka. Absolute is the original and still a great choice if you're going to use a Citron vodka. So if you like Cosmopolitan, things like that, that's a good choice. Then our floral component is going to come from St. Germain. So we're going to take three quarters of an ounce of this elderflower liqueur and add that to our tin. And then from here, we're going to take three quarters of an ounce of a lychee puree or syrup. So all I did here was take a can of lychee using syrup, which I got at my local Asian market. I poured most of the fruit and the syrup into my Vitamix blender, blended them up and then ran them through a strainer to get this syrup. So three quarters of an ounce. of my lychee syrup and add there. And lychees are an Asian fruit that are very perfumey and aromatic kind of in their own ways. So they kind of play nicely with this floral theme. And then we're going to split the citrus. So we're going to do a half ounce of our lemon juice. And then we'll add the same, a half ounce of lime juice to our small shaker tin. And then the final element, which is also appropriate for springtime, is rhubarb bitters. So these bitters will add some bitterness, a little earthiness, and a little of that spring fruit. So we're actually just doing two drops here. come on, there's one. And we'll call that two. Maybe a third one slipped in there along the way. Now, we'll take our large chim and ice it up before we get ready to shake our cocktail. So, kind of get our ice ready and then we'll shake 10 to 15 seconds. Alright, and once you kind of develop some frost on your glass, that's also a cue to know that you're done. Then from our freezer, we'll pull out a chilled coupe glass and we'll double strain to hold back some of those ice shards. Now leeching cocktails, probably the most famous one is the leechy martini and they have gotten a lot of scrutiny and this was a cocktail that I found on Cocktail Party app which actually came from a reddit thread of someone looking about how to make good leechy cocktails and this is what they came up with. ⁓ We've done this in a cocktail class before and it is delicious. So unfortunately I don't know who the reddit user was so I don't have a good history behind it. other than it makes a delicious drink. So when I bought my canned leachies at the Asian market, I held back a few in a small container, which then I can garnish the drink on a pick and have my silk sheets. Cheers. For our second cocktail, we have the Water Lily. Our Water Lily is an equal part cocktail, so if you mess up the first ingredient, just make sure the rest of them line up and you'll be good to go. First ingredient, three quarters of an ounce of our indigo gin. This one is rundle gin, but most of you know of impris as the probably the more prominent of an indigo style gin. Yeah, Rundle is a craft producer in Canada and a good friend of the podcast, Elizabeth Dotson, gave me that gin after a trip to Canada. So that's what we have and that's what we're going to use. Three quarters of an ounce of our Indigo gin. Next is three quarters of an ounce of Quantro. Three quarters of an ounce of violet liqueur. Of course this is bringing our floral flavor to the table, but it also is helping amplify that violet color or indigo color. and three quarters of an ounce of fresh lemon juice. Now that we have all equal parts into our tin, let's get some ice into our big tin. Pour and shake. 10 to 15 seconds. Braker seal and grab our chilled coupe. We're gonna double strain, keep out those ice shards. And now we'll garnish. with a little bit of orange. It spreads the oils. I like to get a little extra and give it a twist. On this one. I'm going to drop my pill down because I want some of those extra orange notes to come through as I continue to sip on the cocktail throughout the episode. From here, enjoy. Now that we've built the cocktails, let's build the context. Give me some interesting facts about flowers or floral cocktails. Sure. So flowers were actually some of the earliest ingredients preserved in alcohol. Rose, violet, elderflower, orange blossom. They show up for centuries in medicinal wines, cordials, and religious preparations. Alcohol wasn't just a way to get drunk, it was a solvent. And so it captured aroma and stabilized some of the delicate botanicals and flowers and made plant medicines shelf stable. Okay, this makes sense. Yeah, sure. Continue. So in medieval Europe, monasteries played a huge role in refining these techniques. Monks weren't thinking about balance or garnish. They were thinking about digestion and circulation and respiration, again, medicinally. But what they created in their monasteries laid the groundwork for the cura traditions that would follow. And so, the 18th and 19th centuries, especially in France and Italy, floral liqueurs were becoming commercial products. Crème de Violette, Rose liqueurs, orange blossom distillates. You know, these weren't just novelty items. They were considered refined, elegant, and often medicinal. Flowers brought bitterness, aroma, and lift to otherwise heavy spirits. Then connect the dots from this medicinal approach to people using them in cocktails. Sure. As cocktail culture begins to formalize in the 19th century, bartenders were already using floral ingredients as part of their toolkit. Early recipes ⁓ frequently call for orange flower water, for instance. Not as a main flavor per se, but as an accent. Think of floral flavors almost the way we think of bitters today, adding like the salt and pepper to co- They were going a different approach where we think of a bitters of more savory, potentially even bolder. These are more light and aromatic in their maybe even aromatic bitter approach. And so after prohibition, a lot of these floral liqueurs actually disappeared because supply chains were broken, tastes had shifted. in and simplicity became the rule in terms of like people making drinks at home and things like that. And it's really not until the late 20th century cocktail Renaissance that bartenders began to rediscover floral ingredients and relearn how to use them all together. Yeah. Elderflower liqueur definitely has its stance. Crim-de-violet or violette. Violette. Yes. I mean, those two we use today, ⁓ but we've also in other cocktails have used, I mean, I think we have a Rose Liqueur. Absolutely. Same Giffords brand or something like that, that you have, yeah. So if we start looking at like historically creme de violet or violette is without a doubt the most famous of the floral liqueurs. And in this context, Crème does not mean dairy. It refers to a high sugar content. Instead of calling it like violet liqueur, anytime you see a crème de whatever, it means the sugar content and that liqueur is going to be higher. Crème de cacao, crème de mythe, crème de violet, crème de rose. Exactly. And this crème de violet, it's delicate. It can be earthy and aromatic. And if you use it sparingly, it will add structure. It will add perfume to the drink. But if you use it carelessly, it can quickly overwhelm the drink. Yeah. Uh, the crimped violet and crimped rose both I've used incorrectly. And that's where I get that, as I've mentioned before, maybe as soapy. And I'm not meaning that in the mouth feel per se it's Definitely it's the perfuminess that you would get from like a scented soap. It just becomes overwhelming. Absolutely. ⁓ And Perv is production method. So what they do to make creme de violet is they macerate violet flowers in brandy. They add sure to it. And they've been producing this stuff in Europe since the 19th century. As part of a trend, people back then clamored for like violet. ⁓ scents or violet-flavored candies and sweets. But the liqueur was largely served on its own and with vermouth until the most famous creme de violet cocktail was published by Hugo Insulin, which is the Aviation. And so the Aviation is a combination of gin, maraschino liqueur, creme de violet, Lemon juice. Yep But one of the issues when we were kind of rediscovering classic cocktails and the early cocktail Renaissance as creme de violet wasn't anywhere in the US some of the recipes would just be like gin Maraschino liqueur and lemon juice and you know maraschino has a unique flavor all of its own and so one of the issues is is As we came out of prohibition, lot of those creme de violette producers had shuttered their doors, and so it was essentially impossible to find, and it wasn't until 2007 that the importer, Hoss Alpens, would introduce the Rothman and Winter creme de violette back to the US market, the one you use in the water, Oh, okay. And ironically enough, the water lily itself was invented that same year, 2007, by Richie Bacato, the famous bartender from Milk and Honey and Little Branch in New York City. We've got the ⁓ good history now on the creme de violette. So let's talk elderflower. here. OK. So in my cocktail, the salt sheets, the floral came from the elderflower. And elderflower liqueurs, especially its modern commercial forms, have become most people's entry point into floral cocktails. They don't start with creme de violette, they start with Saint Germain. And so elderflower is very bright, it's fruit-adjacent, it's almost pear-like or leach-y-like. Hence the pairing with the leach-y and the silk sheets. And that makes it easier to integrate with other flavors compared to like a violet liqueur, which has some of that soapy flavor profile that you were alluding to earlier. ⁓ The interesting story about St. Germain is Robert Cooper was actually a member of a family with a rich history in the spirits business. ⁓ His family made Chambord. Okay. And so he thought he wanted to prove himself. So instead of just sticking to making Chambord, he want to strike out on his own. And he found a liqueur flavored with elderflower after he drank a cocktail in London flavored with elderflower syrup. And so that's he's like, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make an elderflower flavored liqueur. And his father told him, said, ⁓ how are I'll hire you back in a year when you fail." He thought there was no way this was going to work. And each bottle of St. Germain contains up to 1,000 hand-picked elderflower blossoms that take weeks to harvest beginning in late May. And the color in St. Germain doesn't come from artificial additives or coloring agents, it's entirely from the Tallen from each bud blending with the other components of the liqueur. I love the fact that we've had this story. We've talked about this story before but the part of this story that I just giggle is The family that's responsible. There's one family that's responsible for probably the most iconic bottles of liqueurs ever made like You don't even have to see a color. You just see the shape and you know exactly what liquor is supposed to be in the Chambord and then the Elderflower liqueur for St. Germain because they are two iconic bottles that cannot be mixed up anywhere. And it's all from the same family lineage. Yeah. And I mean, undoubtedly that's why Cooper was so dedicated to coming up with a distinctive bottle design. for St. Germain. And because St. Germain has become such a versatile ingredient, whether you use it in a spritz or with gin, tequila, vodka, or whiskey, it quickly became known as the bartender's ketchup. Yeah. Introducing friends to new liqueurs are different types of liqueurs than what they're used to. Elderflower, the St. Germain is the easiest one to to bridge a gap. They don't like something, maybe add a little elderflower liqueur. It gets them there. The Hugo Spritz is by far the cocktail that I send individuals that are wanting to get into a light, refreshing cocktail before I send them to maybe an Aperol or to a Campari. It's to get them into that Spritz mood and mode before just completely throwing them into the bitter, deep end of the pool. So yeah, the bartender's ketchup is a apt name for that liqueur. Yeah, and for a moment in the bartending world, it was in everything, right? Yeah. Then let's talk, you mentioned rose, another floral, so rose. So rose is one of the trickiest flowers to use. Roses. Traditionally have been used medicinally and ceremonially not necessarily in terms of sweetness modern palettes often associate rose with candy and So using rose requires a very an even lighter hand than some of these other flowers ⁓ Oftentimes it works better as an aroma than a flavor Adding as an exit for like a bitter like a aromatic bitter than I am using it more as a choco or spice bitter. Yeah. And to my knowledge, ⁓ Combier is the only producer of a rose liqueur. Again, I don't know it all, but it's the only one that I've seen in our market. ⁓ And what they do is they take rose petals that they harvest from the Loire Valley in France and steep them in neutral sugar beet alcohol. And then they add in some other natural sugars. And so this liqueur can add some of the rose scent and flavor into a cocktail. ⁓ The other option would be to use like rose water. Yeah. But rose water is so super concentrated where even a drop too much could send a drink into like undrinkable territory. Yeah. At first. When cocktails were calling for rose liqueur, I, because there wasn't access to a rose liqueur, I would use rose water as droplets, but then try to use a different sweetener, say like a simple syrup or ⁓ maybe a more neutral liqueur. But one drop was not enough, two drops was too many. Like it is potent to say the least. ⁓ modifying a grenadine spec, right? If you were to add something like that just to give some extra, you know, aromas, whew, it could go too far. So rose liqueur, rose water, not the same. ⁓ And trying to approach them would be a very big fallacy. Yeah, they are not substitutable. Anything else for rose or should we go to orange? Let's talk about orange blossom. Okay. So here it's not like using orange in the sense of like the fruit or the peel like in a triple sack or a quantro. It's using the blossoms of an orange tree ⁓ and orange flower waters and distillates have been used for centuries to add brightness without sugar. You know, think about early American cocktails such as the Ramos gin fizz. Add a few drops of that to brighten up that drink that's gin and citrus and heavy cream and egg whites and you know, there's a lot going on, but that orange blossom water, even in small amounts, can just lift it up a little. In the Middle East, they use orange flower water in their teas and lemonades and even yogurt drinks. I was unaware of that part and that could be an interesting take for us to try one time. Absolutely. ⁓ And then of course our friends at Leopold Brothers in Denver, Colorado, they actually produce an orange blossom cordial. And what they did is they, because they use fractional distilling, distilled like blood oranges on one hand and neroli. which was orange blossom essential oil, like using a lot of Italian perfume making together to make a liqueur that's like 40 % ABV. And so, you know, that's been fun. I got a bottle and use it to like make spritzes with and it's delicious. you mentioned the ABV of that are these liqueurs? reasonably higher or moderate ABV? Where do they stand? Well, they can vary depending anywhere from like 15 % ABV. I mentioned the Leopold Orange Blossom, which is 40, but some might even make an argument that herbal or alpine liqueurs like a genipi or even a chartreuse might fall into this camp. Even though they aren't purely floral, flowers definitely play a major role in their aromatic profile. And of course, like green chartreuse is 55 % ABV. ⁓ So those sort of cocktails that are like herbal, floral, bitter, they can add more complexity to cocktails. All right, so we've now blended this a little into... still holding into the floral, but going into potentially got some herbal aspects with those two that you tossed in there. ⁓ for using floral liqueurs at home for the first time, what are your recommendations or what are your guidance moving forward there? The most important rule is restraint. Okay. If you're experimenting making cocktails at home, with some of these floral liqueurs start small, maybe a bar spoon or a quarter of an ounce and build up from there because it's easier to add a little more in like, hmm, that bar spoon, I'm not really getting it. But then adding like a whole ounce, we're like, ⁓ too much. Way much. It's like I walked into Bath and Body Works. Okay, moderation in using baby steps there is tip number one. Tip number two would be spirit pairing. Yeah. So here gin is going to be the easiest spirit to work with because some of the botanical profiles in gin already have some floral mints. So the liqueurs can kind of play with and accent some of those flavors already. ⁓ I would avoid stacking floral liqueurs. So like in some cocktails, like in the Tiki world where Don the Beachcomber would say, you know, three rums is better than one and try to vary the profile. Like doing violet and elderflower and rose all together. No, no, no, no, no. No, you want the more clarity of flavor profile there. Be intentional. with that approach. Okay. And lastly, think of floral lecaris is the way you think about salt and cooking. Yeah, you shouldn't necessarily taste it directly, right? But you'll certainly notice when it's not there. I mean, unless you were going like, I want an elderflower margarita where I'm mainly, it's like I'm eating flower buds. But a lot of times it's going to elevate the tequila, the lime juice and some of the other ingredients, but, you know, use it more as an accent. Wrapping things up, bringing us home. Floral cocktails remind us that mixology is what? Well, it didn't begin as entertainment like we see it today. Gathering around the bar, watching the bartender work their craft. mixology cocktails began as preservation, medicine, things like that. Flowers weren't just decorations or garnishes on a cocktail. They were tools. And if used correctly, tools that can make very great drinks. Absolutely. We end today's episode with telling you to go home, give this a try. Using those three bullet points of moderation, being very intent, possibly pairing it with gin and just knowing that a little bit at a time will get you there. Like, share, subscribe, all those things on our socials. We're now on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. And I think that's it. And then now we've got our podcast going up on almost all of the podcast services. that be what? Spotify or Apple. So follow along there. If you can't watch us, listen along. Leave us a comment or drop us an email over at podcast.intothepowerarchive.com. We would love to chat with you and talk about any of your floral cocktail questions. Yeah. And on our next episode, we'll trade. flowers for Fizz as we celebrate National Gin and Tonic Day. But we're looking well beyond Britain and the basics we covered in episode 5 on the Highball. Instead, we're going to explore how the Gin and Tonic became a global canvas, featuring Spain's Gin Tonica, where balloon glasses, ice, and garnish turn a simple Highball into a ritual. And then we'll look at Japan's Jensonic, a lighter, cleaner expression built on precision, balance, and refreshment. Two cultures. Two approaches. And one deceptively simple drink. And until then, keep digging through the past, one drink at a time, here on Into the Bar-Cive. Cheers.