Pine syrup isn’t probably the most widespread cocktail ingredient, however among the many bartenders who’ve found it, this aromatic, arboreal sweetener has turn out to be a staple of their repertoire. With delicate, wintery menthol flavors, pine syrup can immediately elevate a Gin & Tonic or put a brand new spin on the ginger-spice dimension of a cold-weather Pimm’s Cup.
One such devotee is Han Suk Cho, of Kato in Los Angeles, who realized to make pine needle syrup in a conventional style from her grandmother whereas rising up in Korea. To make sol ip chung (generally written as solip-cha) includes packing freshly foraged younger pine needles in sugar and honey and leaving the combination to steadily ferment and liquify over six months.
Fortunately, Cho has since tailored the recipe into a fast stovetop technique that includes a a lot quicker extraction by merely steeping pine needles in heat easy syrup. Cho showcases her pine needle syrup in a bubbly, zero-proof highball she calls the Pine Sudachi Spritz, which additionally requires mint, sudachi juice (from a bitter citrus fruit) and glowing water. Company have mentioned the N/A cocktail reminds them of a G&T.
“Pine additionally goes properly with cucumber,” says Cho. “Each of them have a pleasant refreshing high quality.” And anytime she is utilizing her quick-method pine syrup in a combined drink, Cho features a citrus factor, like yuzu or the aforementioned sudachi. “Citrus acidity additionally enhances very properly with pine needle.”
The important thing to ending up with a pine syrup that expresses aromas evocative of a high-elevation forest stroll, in keeping with Cho, is to forage from timber the place there’s good air high quality, in areas that endure a chilly winter, and to take action in spring, when there’s new tree progress. Extra mature needles (and people from timber in hotter climates) have a tendency to supply a woodier, much less attribute taste. However for an low season workaround, utilizing pine needle tea (out there on-line) as the bottom for a easy syrup is a quick observe to including that alpine taste. When Cho has used this technique, she has discovered she wanted to extend the amount of dried pine needles “to match the efficiency and freshness” of newly collected needles.
Some bartenders, nevertheless, want to seize pine’s signature aromatic high quality by one other product: pine buds (aka pine cones or gems). In Alpine Europe, custom requires pine buds within the manufacturing of mugolio (“mugo” refers back to the mountain pine, Pinus mugo, which may develop tall or current as a bushy dwarf plant; “olio” is Italian for oil) made in a course of fairly much like that of sol ip chung.
For years, bartender Keith Mrotek, of Flora Room in Minneapolis, has been mixing drinks with Primitivizia, a bottled mugolio by Eleonora Cunaccia, a forager who canvasses the Dolomites for the choicest cones. Flora Room presently serves a bracing lengthy drink, the Mediterránea, that includes mugolio alongside alpine gin and alpine liqueur, ginger syrup and citrus. “Categorically, I’ve used [mugolio] in gin-based cocktails as a result of I really feel like it could—magically—take away a number of the ‘pine’ style that gin cocktails have and mellow it out a bit of bit,” Mrotek explains. “It provides complexity in a approach you could’t wrap your head round. It’s like MSG or shio koji.”
That very same complexity is at play at New York’s Seoul Salon, the place bartender Sungrae Choi’s housemade pine cordial calls on each pine needle tea and dried pine buds (each sourced on-line). The cordial is employed in a French 75–like cocktail he calls Seoul Forest, made with gin, pine soju, prosecco and mint bitters. The citrus notes of the gin complement the pine cordial properly. “I needed the cocktail to be extra vivid and refreshing.”
Choi, who like Cho has lived in Seoul, explains that pine is a touchstone of Korean tradition, representing sincerity and tenacity (as an evergreen would). Koreans typically embark on therapeutic “forest baths” to reconvene with nature, Choi says, and his cocktail is meant to evoke that sensation. “I needed to carry that pine taste to the bar, so folks can drink the cocktail and perceive that a part of Seoul.”
