Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Experimentation!

Welcome back dear friends! This week I’m tackling something I’ve wanted to try since last summer a drink involving some leftover pickling brine from homemade cucumber salad.  I figured the amount of brine leftover from the cucumber salad is chock full of flavor and thought it might be worth trying to mix into a drink. I talked to my bartender friend, and he suggested I infuse some cucumber gin with some feta and use that as a base for the drink. So, I did.

I ended up infusing 6 ounces of Hendricks to 3 ounces of feta. I left it at room temperature for a few hours, then put it in the fridge, shaking it a little bit every couple hours or so. Right before bed, I put it in the freezer overnight to make it easier to strain the next day. Which I did using a fine strainer to catch the bigger chunks of cheese, and then a wet coffee filter to get the finer bits.

Now that I’ve got my gin sorted, it’s time to mix. I did a 3-1 ratio of the feta infused gin to dry vermouth. I added those to a shaker with ice and stirred until chilled, and then strained into a frozen coupe glass. Garnish with a cucumber and more cheese.

The drink has the usual gin aromas, with a hint of cucumber from the gin itself and the garnish.

This has a very interesting flavor. It has a salty brine-y taste up front. More than I was expecting to be honest. I wonder how much the feta brine plays a role in that, considering I opted for feta that is in a brine, as opposed to feta that is dry and sealed up. As to the cucumber flavor, the cucumber in the Hendricks gets a bit lost here, much to my disappointment. Another factor for the lack of cucumber flavor is the because I ended up not using the pickling brine like I wanted to. I forgot that we add some canola oil to the above linked recipe, and that little bit of oil adds a slickness and viscosity that I don’t necessarily like here.  It adds a bit of a weird mouth feel that I’m not a fan of. The drink then finishes with a consistent salty, briny gin flavor that leaves a little bit of a lingering taste on the palate after you’ve finished.

The question now is, do I like this? The answer is….I’m not entirely sure. The saltiness the feta adds is intense, and I’m not sure it’s for me. Mrs Sharkbait loves it however. She says it’s very much like a dirty martini. I don’t like those so it makes sense that I’m not necessarily a fan of this. I’m not ruling out making this again. Next time I do the cucumber dish I’ll omit the oil and try again. Also, I might swap the gin as well. I might go with a Plymouth gin or the  Brighton gin. Something not as intense as a regular London dry gin. Either way, this was a fun experiment and it was worth attempting.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)