u/highalcoholcontent

Thin Glizzy

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Dirty Martini - Got That Dog In It - Fully Loaded

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Fourth of July means alcohol, fireworks, and hot dogs. And you can now fortunately check off two of those boxes in one tasty package right here!

Enter the Thin Glizzy—a tidy package of all the things that make hot dogs great—hot dog, bun, mustard, onion/tomato sauce, relish. Now without the pesky middleman step of “chewing” to slow you down.

I’ve been making some variation of this for four years now, but I think I really nailed it this go around. The martini is a split between two ingredients—a hot dog and buttered bun distillate and a condiment gin (aka CondiGin).

The distillate is made by blending together buttered buns with a nicely charred dog. That gets infused for a bit and then dumped into the Airstill for distilling. One day I’ll have a rotovap to really concentrate those dawg flavors—for right now, however, the brute force of the Airstill will have to do. But it works great here, bringing that hot dog je ne sais quoi without becoming overwhelming—giving a hint of that smoky umami that lurks in the background of this otherwise kinda familiar tasting dirty martini.

Meanwhile, the condiments come in via a “CondiGin” that incorporates a tomato/onion sauce, mustard, and pickle brine. It’s delicious on its own—bright, vegetal, a little spicy, and punchy—but absolutely shines in combination with the dog juice. Not just ketchup. Because that would be a martini for children.

That is added to some Murrell Row Mignonette Gin (which already has some onion hanging around in the botanicals) and cooked sous vide at a low temp to let those flavors infuse. That’s strained out, and a mustard tincture is added in (combo of some homemade pungent mustard with ever clear) along with dry vermouth and pickle brine. That is treated with wine fining agents (chitosan and kieselsol) before running through the centrifuge to clarify everything out

….But how does it taste? The important question for any drink—but especially when the drink contains a tube of meat.

Honestly? Fantastic. It’s a dirty martini at its core—one that relies on the interplay of the tangy/vinegar of the mustard, the brightness of the pickle brine, and the savory vegetal tomato notes and slight onion flavor of the sauce.But underneath all of that is this smoky hint of umami from the hot dog that is there, but not in a way that is overly aggressive or that bullies the other ingredients.

And not like a sloppy cloudy dirty martini. The flavors here are extremely refined and reigned in and it absolutely doesn’t drink like an oily mess like those can be. It’s super drinkable and interesting—but you definitely do have to be a fan of dirty martinis from the get go (and a fan of hot dogs. That’s an important element too).

This is effectively the only way I’ll be able to take down a Joey Chestnut sized load of hot dogs—by turning them into delicious liquid

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Method

• 2 oz CondiGin
• 1.25 oz Dawg Distillate
• Garnish: Hot Dog Bite
• Add ingredients to mixing tin with ice. Stir to dilute/chill. Strain into chilled glass. Garnish with toasted bun with hot dog, onion sauce, mustard on it. Dig in!

Dawg Distillate

• 1 Sabrett Beef Hot Dog
• 2 Hot Dog Buns, Buttered
• 275ml Everclear (75%)
• 500ml Water
• Toast buns in saute pan while at the same time cooking the dawg. Looking for a nice char here.
• Combine the dog and buns with the Everclear and water. Distill that going low and slow, tasting along the way and collecting portions of about 100-200ml
• Discard the first ~15mls
• Once you get into the tails of the distillation, when the booze is all distilled out, keep going and collect ~100ml of this.
• Blend the collections together. More art than science here.
• Test with refractometer to estimate ABV and add water to get up to 45% ABV

Tomato-Onion Sauce

• 2 Yellow Onions French Cut
• 2.5 tbsp Tomato Paste
• 1/8th tsp Black Pepper
• 1/8th tsp White Pepper
• Pinch Allspice
• 1/8th tsp Caroway
• 1/8th tsp Celery Seed
• 1 tsp Sugar
• 3 tbsp White Vinegar
• 3/4 cup Water
• Saute 2 French cut onions with a bit of oil and salt for 1 hour on med-low, adding water if needed if they start to overly brown. Not looking for heavy caramelization here.
• Add spices and cook for a minute.
• Add tomato paste, increase heat to medium, and cook for ~3 minutes.
• Add sugar, water, and vinegar and simmer for 15 min.

Mustard Tincture

• 50g Spicy Mustard
• 150g Everclear (75%)
• Combine in bad and sous vide at 145F for 1 hour.
• Strain out solids

CondiGin

• 300ml Murrell’s Row Mignonette Gin
• 60g Onion Sauce
• 45ml Dill Pickle Brine
• 60ml Mustard Tincture
• 100ml Dry Vermouth
• Add gin and onion sauce to bag and sous vide at 132F for 1 hour.
• Add remaining ingredients, and treat with Pectinex, Kieselsol (add both and wait 15 minutes), then Chitosan (wait 15 min), then Kieselsol
• Run through centrifuge

Cheese Grits Old Fashioned
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Corn - Bay - Lactic - Gritty
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Good quality grits, cooked properly is one of my simple pleasures. I’m not talking about the “instant grits” or otherwise stale stuff that’s common—I mean the freshly milled grits that retains the characteristics of the corn itself.

So what’s good in a bowl is obviously good in a glass, right? Duh. Enter…the Cheese Grits Old Fashioned.

This one leans on a duo of corn-heavy bourbon: the fantastic and unique Jimmy Red Corn Bourbon from High Wire Distilling , and the classic standby Mellow Corn. Those are infused with an extra layer of corn through dried crushed hominy (to prevent too much absorption/loss of the bourbon that grits would do) and fat washed with aged cheddar cheese and butter.

The cheddar is first split into the solids and the fats/oils, letting the oils do the actual fat washing. This makes the process much easier to strain out, and transfers the flavors I’m looking for from the cheddar (lactic funk, tang, nuttiness). The aroma/flavor from the cheese is a surprisingly delicious match to the bourbon (they share some similar aromatic compounds—y-decalactone, butanoic acid, hexanoic acid, ethyl heaxanoate, 3-mathybutyl acetate….phew). They’re not so matchy that they meld together in a way that leads to neither being pronounced, but they do skip together hand-in-hand down the pathway into your stomach.

A little bay leaf syrup for a bit of earthiness grounds this one and finishes it off with some menthol/piny flavors. It’s NOT just a superfluous ingredients that people think doesn’t do anything—try it as the only seasoning in a dish!

Tons of unique flavor here that just works. It keeps you going back for sip after sip.
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Method

2.5 oz Butter & Cheese Grits Bourbon
Short 0.5 oz Bay Leaf Syrup
Garnish: Bay Leaf

Add all to mixing tin with ice; stir to partially dilute. Strain into glass over fresh ice and garnish with bay leaf

Butter & Cheese Grits Bourbon
30g Aged Cheddar Cheese Fat
50g Dried & Crushed Hominy
40g Butter
150g High Wire Distilling Jimmy Red Corn Bourbon
150g Mellow Corn Bourbon

Add Sliced cheddar to saucepan (~100g) and high on high until the fats separate from the solids.
Strain out the fats. You can toss the solids (they ain’t great!)
Add the cheese fat, butter, hominy, and bourbon to a bag and seal.
Sous vide at 145F for 2 hours.
Freeze overnight to solidify the fats, and strain out.
Reserve.

Bay Leaf Syrup
0.5 cup Water
0.5 cup Sugar
5 fresh Bay Leaves

Bring all ingredients to a boil, then drop down to low simmer.
Simmer on low for 5 minutes.
Cover and turn off heat.
Steep for 30 minutes.
Strain and reserve.

We are currently in peak strawberry season so it’s a good time to get as many into you as possible—through food and beverage alike. Right now, the Carolinas are pumping out some fantastic strawberries—especially if they’re picked at peak ripeness (instead of whatever it is you get at the grocery store). There’s not too much you need to do with them…but that’s not to say there isn’t some room to dit them into food, cocktails, etc. etc.

Strawberries hold up well to a lot of different techniques and uses. Here, they are lacto-fermented to let their natural sweetness play off the tangy complexity of what our bacteria friends bring to the table. That lacto-flavor is a great pairing in a sherry cobbler to add nice depth and counter to the (here, Fino and Amontillado) sherry’s yeasty acidity. It’s also a good counter to the little funky hit of spice with a gochujang and sesame oil infused Java rum, where the strawberry’s sweetness balances without dominating (and while adding a little layer of funk of it’s own).

I use a fat wash where sesame oil is is infused with the gochujang to bring in the flavors of the oil and the gochujang without either becoming overwhelming in the finished product. It lurks and provides some nice high ends, but doesn’t swallow up the sherry or strawberry (or the rum itself)

Simultaneously refreshing and complex, funky and spicy, savory and sweet. Lot of fun to drink and make this one.
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Method

Cocktail
1.5 oz Fino Sherry
0.5 oz Amontillado Sherry
0.75 oz Gochujang/Sesame Batavia Arrack
1 oz (scant) Lacto-Fermented Strawberry Syrup
0.5 oz Lime Juice
0.5 tsp Rice Wine Vinegar

Add ingredients to shaker with a small scoop crushed ice and whip shake. Dump in glass and top with crushed ice. Give a quick swizzle, and add fresh strawberry and lime slice as garnish.
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Lacto-Fermented Strawberry Syrup
400g Strawberries, chopped
8g Salt
Sugar

Add strawberries and salt to bag and vacuum seal. Keep in cool, dark place for 7 days. Check this after 5 days to ensure it is not over-fermenting. You’re looking for something that maintains the flavor of the strawberry and its sweetness, without becoming overwhelmingly savory and devoid of sweetness.
Blend strawberries and juices and fine strain.
Add equal parts by weight strawberry and sugar to blender and blend. Bottle.
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Sesame/Gochujang Rum

14g Gochujang
10g Sesame Oil
20g Neutral Oil (e.g. Avocado Oil)
250ml Batavia Arrack van Oosten

Add together gochujang and oils into sauce pan and heat over medium-low to combine and infuse. Let that go for 10 minutes, then remove from heat and let sit together for 30 minutes.
Combine this with the rum and seal.
Sous vide at 150F for 2 hours.
Shock in ice bath, then put bag in freezer overnight. Strain the next day

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of New Belgium Asheville and OG Fat Tire was on draft and for sale! Tastes like pure nostalgia. Too bad New Belgiums widely distributed beers don’t match up with what’s available at the brewery anymore.

Spring is one of my favorite times of the year for produce. From the couple of weeks we get to forage for ramps and morels, to the peak season of rhubarb, it's just full of good stuff. This spritz focuses on rhubarb in all its tart glory, with inspiration coming from the pair of rhubarb and buttermilk (a buttermilk pie with rhubarb/rhubarb jam is tough to top).

Here, the raw rhubarb’s sharp tartness is used to form the flavor and acidic base of this spritz. It’s blended with a really nice natty skin-contact rosé (Christian Binner Sin Rose—a mix of Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris that is an absolute crusher—highly recommended) that gives some slight funk and nuance to the end result, and Eda Rhyne Amaro Flora—a local amaro/aperitif that trends more floral/woodsy over more common red bitters (think Nonino meets a bit of Campari). That's clarified through buttermilk to give a subtle lactic tang that tempers down the tartness and adds some cool flavor to the drink. That is then mixed with Eda Rhyne Pinnix gin (really neat Appalachian terroir gin that has some earthy notes going on), a malic/citric acid combo to help pop out the rhubarb, and some sweetness to balance the tartness. That's carbonated a couple times and we're good to go!

This is an absolute crusher—perfect for when the weather starts trending a bit warmer in the Spring. The rhubarb’s flavor and tartness really shines through here, with the other components playing a complimentary, but still present, role. Obviously a good bit of work but extremely worth it!

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Rhubarb/Wine/Amaro Base

• 500g Rhubarb (chopped into ~1/2 inch pieces)
• 500ml Natty Skin Contact Rosé (here, Christian Binner Si Rose—a Gewürztraminer and Pinot Gris combo that is a crusher)
• 300ml Eda Rhyne Amaro Flora (as a sub you could go ~50/50 Campari and Nonino)
• 8oz Buttermilk
• 4 oz Whole Milk
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• Steps:
  • Blend first 3 ingredients together. Fine strain.
  • Pour mixture into the buttermilk/whole milk combo. Let this sit overnight in fridge.
  • Clarify either using a centrifuge (nice and quick) or the ole fashioned way of cheesecloth and time.

Spritz

• 1000ml Base (from above)
• 225ml Eda Rhyne Pinnix Gin
• 90ml 2:1 Simple Syrup
• 200ml Water
• 3.5g Citric Acid
• 1g Malic Acid
• 1g Salt
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• Steps:
  • Blend together ingredients on low to incorporate.
  • Add to bottle, remove as much air as possible, and cap with carbonating cap. Chill overnight.
  • Carbonate to 45 PSI, then return to fridge overnight.
  • Vent, then carbonate again to 45 PSI. Store overnight, vent, and carbonate again. Let rest in fridge until ready to serve.
  • Vent and pour into glass over ice.
  • Carbonate remaining liquid to 45 PSI and store in fridge for future use.