When Don Lee first got here up with the concept for creating a DIY dehydrated liqueur “powder,” he wasn’t but a bartender.
It was 2007, he remembers, the identical yr PDT opened. He labored a desk job in IT, and frolicked on the beloved Purple Hook, Brooklyn, spirits retailer LeNell’s, which is now closed, alongside future drinks world luminaries like bar proprietor Damon Boelte. “I had a whole lot of free time,” Lee says.
As we speak, Lee is well-known as a science-minded professional, a former companion at New York’s now-closed Present Circumstances, a advisor, and an educator working with notable properties, together with chef Kwame Onwuachi’s Tatiana at Lincoln Heart. Which means he wants to search out concepts that work properly in a business setting.
This isn’t a type of concepts.
However in an age the place high-end bars are experimenting with flavored rims made with all the things from freeze-dried fruit powder to koji spores, Lee’s technique gives a simple at-home different, no dehydrator required. All that’s wanted is a bottle of liqueur, a microwave and silicone bakeware.
Thomas Keller’s French Laundry Cookbook offered some early inspiration for the method, Lee remembers. Particularly, Keller suggests utilizing the microwave to make “vegetable dusts” for garnishing.
“I assumed, what in case you take a liquid that has a whole lot of taste and sugar, and cut back it right down to do a rim for a drink?” remembers Lee. Liqueurs turned out to be the perfect liquid.
The fundamental method entails microwaving a small quantity of liqueur (lots of his early experiments began with a half-cup of Campari, Aperol or maraschino) in brief increments till it’s heated almost to the boiling level—however no increased. “It ought to be as sizzling as attainable with out boiling over,” Lee explains. Somewhat than heating in a inflexible container, like a Pyrex bowl, he recommends extra versatile silicone bakeware, like a muffin cup, set over a Silpat sheet, a variation on Keller’s technique. “You want one thing to make the cleanup simpler, as a result of it can inevitably boil over,” Lee says, at the least till you get a way for the way lengthy your microwave takes to warmth the liquid to the near-boiling level.
The liqueur ought to be heated in roughly 10-second pulses, then faraway from the microwave because it nears boiling. A number of the liquid ought to evaporate, in response to Lee. It may possibly then be returned to the microwave for an additional 10-second pulse. “Repeat as many occasions as wanted till you get a really thick syrup,” he advises. When the liquid reduces to a “gravy consistency,” thick sufficient to coat the again of a spoon, that’s a sign that a lot of the water has evaporated, forsaking molten sugar.
From there, “let it sit in a single day, and you find yourself with a crystalline puck,” with a shiny, lollipop-like consistency, says Lee. “You’re mainly turning liqueur right into a Jolly Rancher.” At that time, it may be peeled out of the silicone bakeware, then pulverized utilizing a muddler or mortar and pestle till it turns into a powder. For a sweeter choice, add sugar to the combo. Saved in an hermetic container, the powder will maintain indefinitely (though the flavour would possibly deteriorate after a very long time).
These powdered liqueurs can work with an array of drinks. Lee recommends utilizing them to “add a bit pop” to cocktails that don’t in any other case use that specific liqueur, similar to a Campari rim on a Paloma, to enrich the grapefruit taste with a extra “bitter citrus ingredient.”
Or it may be used as a bridge between two drinks which are related in fashion, similar to a Chartreuse rim on an Aviation to counsel a Final Phrase, or an Amer Picon rim on a Manhattan to make it “evocative of a Brooklyn,” says Lee.
Whereas he hasn’t revisited this particular method since going professional—in spite of everything, “it’s not economically possible for a bar” to nuke a full-price liqueur right down to a powdered format—he has different concepts for making a flavorful rim, similar to mixing dehydrated citrus zest with sugar for an oleo saccharum–impressed mud which may channel the flavour of Aperol, or mixing a gentian-tinged tincture with sugar for a bittersweet impact.
After all, those that aren’t making an attempt to maximise earnings for a bar may at all times simply eat powdered liqueurs as they’re.
“If cash was no concern, you might use it as an grownup Enjoyable Dip,” Lee jokes. “The most costly Enjoyable Dip ever.”
