A Tonic for the Dog Days of Summer

Steamy DC summers call for plenty of gin and tonics, but the commercial tonics are sticky sweet and not very flavorful; trendy tonics like Fever Tree and Q are tasty but cost more than the gin -- awkward. So we made our own tasty tonic base -- a syrup -- following Jeffrey Morgenthaler's updated recipe from 2014.

Since we were working on our vermouths and chinatos we had the critical Cinchona -- quinine -- in powdered form. We made a tincture of 30g to 600 ml clean cheap Frïs vodka, a bit higher concentration than he uses, and strained through a coffee filter to produce a clear copper bitter elixir.

30 g Cinchona powder (mine's a very fine powder)
600 ml Vodka (clean-tasting)

Mix well, let sit a few hours, stir, and strain through a coffee filter -- this could take an hour or more

The rest of the recipe we followed pretty closely, adding a bit more citrus because denuding a grapefruit produced a bit more than the 30 g requested, and we had a half a lime lying around. We had the citric acid from Irene's cheese making and other kitchen experiments.  It was pretty easy: simmer the aromatics with sugar and water; off heat, strain then add some of the quinine tincture. I've decreased the sugar a bit and added a little fresh ginger.

20 g Citric Acid
10 g Gentian Root
2 g Cinnamon, broken into pieces
30 g lemon zest (2 lemons)
30 g grapefruit zest (1 grapefruit)
15 g Ginger, fresh, sliced very thinly
350 g Sugar
500 ml Water

Bring the aromatics, sugar and water to boil, reduce heat, cover, simmer gently for 20 minutes.
Strain, cool.

Add 45 ml (1 1/2 ounces) of the Quinine Tincture to the cooled aromatic syrup.
Refrigerate up to 2 weeks.

Straining simmered aromatics through sieve and coffee filter

Measuring ingredients that went into the tonic syrup

For a single drink, use 1 ounce tonic syrup, 3 ounce sparkling water, 1 1/2 ounce gin. Easy.

The payoff: beautiful, fresh-tasting G-n-T.

It has a fresh citrus taste, Irene got orange right away. It's flavorful without the chemical taste of commercial tonics, and it's not nearly so sticky.  We can also adjust the taste, perhaps lightening it up with a bit more sparkling water on hotter days.  

Good stuff, not hard to make. Nice color too, but we haven't tested to see if it glows under blacklight. :-)

Merloto Chinato, a riff on Barolo Chinato dessert wine

We recently opened a bottle of Barolo Chinato, a dessert wine made of Barolo and various herbs and spices: Chinato refers to "Cinchona", the quinine used in tonic water. I think it's my new favorite drink, redolent or cherries and maybe chocolate, some herbs; on the taste, it was very full bodied, rich. These are said to go really well with chocolate, and indeed they do. This bottle, by Damilano, was pretty pricey -- $66 for 500 ml, but we liked it so much Irene got me another brand for Christmas, from Cocchi, similarly priced.

Since we've been making our own vermouth, we figured we'd have a go at making our own approximation: could we make something for $10 for 750 ml?

Two commercial and two home made, with Irene's chocolate angel food cake

Recipe

The big difference between Barolo Chinato and Vermouth (aside from red vs white wine) is that vermouth is based on the bittering agent "vermut" or wormwood, while Chinato uses Cinchona.  I soaked 30g cinchona powder in 600 ml clean but inexpensive Frïs vodka for a few hours then strained it through a coffee filter; it came out a pleasant clear copper color.

When making vermouth, I use 300 ml of bitter herbal tinctures to two 750 ml bottles of wine, so did the same thing here. I started with about 75 ml of my cinchona tincture, and added other tinctures I'd made for vermouth: rhubarb root, nutmeg, clove, bay leaf, angelica root, cinnamon, vanilla, cardamom, black walnut, fennel, juniper and others. I didn't measure these for this first experiment.

For my vermouth, I make a caramel, cooking to 188C/370F, but this one got away from me and came out a bit darker with a more burnt edge than usual.

I wanted to try an experiment so I split the 1800 ml of wine and tinctures into two jugs. To the first, I added the caramel (200 g sugar to 60 g water), and to the second I added agave syrup (133 g because it's 50% sweeter than sugar).

Tasting

We let them sit overnight to chill with the commercial bottles in the fridge, then did a blind taste test in the morning when our tastebuds were fresh. I lettered the bottoms of the glasses so I could determine which was which, then randomized them and assigned the fronts numbers so we could take notes. We served with this some of Irene's chocolate angel food cake. Our notes are below, and we reveal which is which.

Caramel: partly cloudy, caramel edge, perhaps slight burnt note, herbal.
Agave: cloudy, cinnamon; brighter and more winey than the caramel one.
Damilano: clear, brownish; fruity smell, thick body, taste of cherry pits, perhaps chocolate, maybe licorice.
Cocchi: clear, ruby; no fruit aroma, some woody aroma; fruity taste, caramel and wood flavors.

Of the four, I preferred the Damilano -- the fruit aroma was seductive; Irene preferred the Cocchi. We both preferred the caramel homemade to the agave one, but maybe the burnt taste was a bit too burnt. The commercial ones had thicker bodies that felt right for an after dinner drink, a digestivo.

Next Time

I'd use caramel next time but back down the color to my normal 188C/370F temperature; I might try another split batch, using honey instead of agave, since it will bring some flavor to the mix. I really love the fruit aroma in Damilano so I'd add bitter orange peel, maybe some crushed cherry pits, perhaps licorice root. The sweet spices remind me too much of mulled wine, so I'd back down the cinnamon and cloves to a barely perceptible level. I'd probably use a more heavy bodied wine, but to keep the cost in check, go with something like a California ancient vine Zinfandel, or maybe one of the affordable Ripassos from Trader Joe's.

There are some recipes for homemade versions on the interwebs including Stefan's with a reference to an Italian one from 1932, and a "secret" recipe that shows photos of the ingredients list. The handwritten secret recipe uses coriandoli (coriander), garofani (carnation flowers), quassia, noce moscata (nutmeg), and vanilla, in addition to the requisite Barolo, cinchona and sugar. Two of these use raisins, cocoa beans and elderberry so I might add cocoa nibs, raisins and elderberry flowers.

I might also try oak aging it by letting it rest on some oak chips for a week to round out the flavor.

Old Bay Crab Stock and Risotto

On the 4th of July, Summer got a big bushel of Eastern Shore crabs, cooked the way they do things 'round here -- steamed or boiled in plenty of Old Bay seasoning. A bunch of us sat around at Dee's, pickin' crabs all day, and we saved all the bits we didn't eat -- shells, small legs, even all the guts and gubbins. At the end of the day, she and I split up the spoils to make stock.

We had some qualms about using the "mustard", "lady fingers", etc -- they're things we don't eat. But I figured that those masters of stock -- The French™ -- wouldn't waste anything so neither would I.

I got a giant pot I used to use for homebrewing, about 8 gallon capacity, and loaded it up with all the shells and offal; it came nearly to the top of the pot.  I added some carrots and celery, and some trimmings of fennel and onion we keep in the freezer for making stock. I added enough water to cover, and it came right up to the edge of the pot.  I brought it to boil then backed it off to a low low simmer.  After a while, I skimmed the scum with a fine mesh skimmer.

Crabs and aromatics, most of the water added, heating up

Usually, fish stocks only simmer for about 45 minutes -- that's all you need to extract the flavor and you don't want to impart a cooked taste. I tried it at about that time, and it seemed a bit weak, so I let it ride another hour or so: crab shells are thicker than fish frames.  I then had to strain it -- no easy feat! I pulled out the bigger shells and set them into strainers over bowls, then pulled out the small stuff to strain, then finally strained the liquid itself.  Whoa, a bit cloudy that!  I ran it through our finest chinois to filter out all the particulates I could, then gave it a taste. Still a bit thin.

I put the now residue-free stock back on the burner and boiled another hour to reduce and concentrate the flavor. Strained it again through the chinois, then set it to to chill in a sink full of ice water. After cooling I covered it and put it in the fridge overnight; it was about 2am by this point.

Next day, I did what we always do: ladelled out the stock into 2- and 4-cup ziptop baggies, laid flat on a cookie sheet, and froze them solid. This gives us good sized packages for cooking with later. I think I got about 3-4 gallons of stock.

It was still a murky greenish brownish color, not particularly appetizing.  I needed to cook something with it to see how it tasted in context and how it looked. I initially planned on doing a seafood risotto, but figured the color might be better for a dark roux gumbo.  But it's summertime here and risotto seemed a better dish, so that's what we made.

I sauteed some shallots and garlic in some nice olive oil, then added the Arborio rice and sauteed it a bit until it turns a bit translucent. Then I added the preheated stock a bit at a time to cover, and cooked and stirred until the rice exuded starches and began to turn tender (no, you don't need to use your grandmother's wooden spoon, or always stir in a clockwise direction; it's pretty forgiving). I kept adding hot stock until the rice was the right texture, with just a bit of a bite left.  We threw some shrimp in at the very end to cook through, then served, garnished with a bit of paprika.

Risotto with shrimp

"This is really good!", exclaimed Irene. It had a definite seafood taste, but not like fish -- it had the sweetness of good Chesapeake Bay blue crabs.  There's a slight hit of heat from the spicy Old Bay, but not overwhelming; the salt level is in check, too. The color was a bit off, not something you'd serve at a white tablecloth restaurant, but I'm willing to overlook that.

Now I'm really glad we saved all the crab bits and made so much stock!