MAKE TINCTURES

TO TRULY experiment with DIY cocktail creation, you’ve got to start with nothing, and a new product called Technical Reserve is the most scientifically composed bottle of nothing you can buy. Flavourless, odorless, and colourless, with zero impurities and tremendous solvent capability, the neutral 191.2- proof (95.6 per cent ABV) spirit is an azeotrope: a perfectly balanced mixture of ethanol and water that cannot be separated by further distillation. It’s a high-alcohol blank slate. “Technical Reserve doesn’t impart flavours. It extracts them,” says Ronak Parikh, head of growth and operations. “We think of it as a tool.” There are lots of ways to use it. We made tinctures. Unlike bitters – hugely complex botanical mixtures including bittering agents like wormwood and gentian root that take weeks to makes – tinctures are concentrated notes of a single ingredient, some ready in an afternoon. You add a few drops to a drink, and the drink is transformed.

Anyone can do this. There’s a biological reason your mouth and nose are connected: so that you can make tinctures. Finding the right balance between solid and liquids – between the extractable flavour and the solvents – is a matter of guess, test, revise. Here’s what we came up with.

THE BASICS

1 / Use small, clean, dry jars with tight-fitting lids, like spice jars. 2 / The ingredients you are extracting need to be completely covered by the Technical Reserve. 3 / Gently shake the mixture at the beginning and then every hour or so. 4 / Work in small portions until you get the ratio right and take good tasting notes, estimating and adjusting as necessary. 5 / Start testing your flavours (a few hours) earlier rather than later. 6 / When the mixtures taste readys – as in goods – to you, strain through a clean coffee filter and store in clean jars. A good option: stainless-steel cone drip with double-mesh filter. 7 / When you’re ready to add your tinctures to a cocktail, use an eyedropper. Not because you’re a pretentious jerk, but because you’re practical. This is concentrated flavour in 191.2-proof alcohol. Too much will throw the balance of any cocktail out of whack. Timing depends upon where your flavouring ingredient falls on the solubility spectrum. All of these tinctures were ready within 6 hours, with the tea first at about 4.5 and the chilli last.

IF YOU’RE GOING FOR . . .

. . . Something green and woodsy in your gin and tonic, or want to mess with your classic gin martini: 2 Tbsp rosemary needles (fresh, approximately 4 stalks) and 2 ounces Technical Reserve. (You might snip the needles with a scissor so they will be easier to submerge.)

. . . A little Southwest in your Bloody Mary, or want to complicate a michelada: 1 ancho chilli (dried poblano), snipped into pieces, seeds included, and 60 ml TR. If you want more heat, just slide up the Scoville scale, indicator of a chile’s pungency. For example, the ancho is 1 000 to 1 500 heat units and the ghost pepper is over 1 000 000 heat units, with many choices in between.

. . . A deeply smoky Manhattan, like the world’s most delicious ashtray: 1 Tbsp Lapsang souchong tea (loose leaves, quality is everything) and 60 ml TR.

. . . Floral and fancy in your greyhound or French 75: 2 Tbsp dried lavender buds and 60 ml TR. Add to a sparkling Cava or mix a few drops with simple syrup for your lemonade or iced tea.