Sharkbaits Cocktail of the Week: Let’s do the Washing Up

Alright, I’m finally back in the routines, both here and at home. The holidays are a tough time to focus on other things, especially when we did a mini magical mystery tour of family in New England over the two weeks. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of room to write or mix anything fancy. Now that it’s over, it’s back to normal, as well as my usual longings to be someplace warm right about now.

Drops the needle on Jimmy Buffet’s Volcano

Speaking of being warm, when I was at my sister’s house on the aforementioned holiday travels, she had some obviously home made chili crisp out for us to enjoy. She picked it up from a vendor at a farmers market she goes to all the time. Since she is a regular of this vendor, he asked if she would be willing to be a guinea pig for his chili crisp, and help him tweak the recipe, and decide if he wanted to sell it or not. Spoiler alert, it’s delicious. She gave me some as we were leaving, and I got a brilliant idea. What if I fat washed some liquor with the chili oil? I’ve been kicking around the idea of trying this out anyway, and I figured now was as good of a time as any to give it a shot. I chose gin since I had the idea that a martini would be a good avenue to really taste the spirit.

To do the fat wash, I only measured out enough gin for the pour. Mainly as a hedge in case this experiment fell flat on its face. To the gin I added about a quarter teaspoon of chili crisp oil. Some solids ended up in the gin, but that’s a problem I can fix later. I shook the mixture around in a small Tupperware container and let it infuse at room temperature for a few hours. Then I put it in the freezer overnight. For the drink itself, I chose an old standby: The medium martini from The Savoy. The rationale being that a little sweet and dry flavor would pair well with the spice of the infused gin.

The drink is notably cloudier, that’s even with a double strain. Most fat wash recipes call for a strain in coffee filters, but I opted to use a fine strainer since all I did was the two ounces. I was able to get most of the bigger solidified fats out of the gin, and the other solids were able to be caught in my fine strainer above the glass. The aroma is different, it’s slightly more bitter and almost vermouth forward. I wonder if the chili oil mutes any kind of sweet vermouth aroma and allows the dry to take the lead and set the tone for the drink.

Wow. That is…different. First of all it has a completely different mouth feel. It’s definitely got more body to it. Not that it adds much, but it’s just enough to pick up on when you’re trying it. It also coats your palate too. Which makes sense given it was infused in chili oil all night. There will be some fats that stick with the gin and you can  The chili crisp oil absolutely leads the way flavor wise here. The spice and the slight bitterness/earthiness from the garlic and the crisp are also very prevalent. What’s interesting is that I really think the spicy oil brings out more of the dry vermouth flavor, just like it did with the smell. I almost think it makes it too vermouth-y. It might be worth backing it down, or even trying to omit it entirely. The sweet, while undetectable, I think is doing a lot of work in the background trying to maintain balance to the best of it’s ability. It finishes with a nice little mouth burn that lasts after you’ve finished your sip. No surprise, given the chili oil wash.

This is good. I think it’s a one and done though the residual palate coating of the fat wash sees to that. As to the drink, I don’t know if a medium martini is the best application though. I want to try this again with a dry martini and see how that goes. Or, even try a vodka based dry martini and see how a neutral spirit works in this application. Either way, this was stupid easy to do and opens up a whole lot of other options and experiments to try.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)