Brief Summary
This video provides tips, tricks, and recipes for creating elevated mocktails that go beyond simple fruit juices and syrups. It covers three non-alcoholic cocktail recipes: the Zero Mojito, the Penicillin…ish, and a Strawberry Punch, emphasizing the use of flavorful ingredients, fermented elements, spices, and unique techniques to replicate the complexity and enjoyment of alcoholic cocktails.
- Avoid flavorless ingredients and use flavorful teas, coffee, or carbonated fermented drinks.
- Incorporate spicy ingredients, smoky flavors, and milk or whey for body and texture.
- Enhance with spices, gomme syrup, vinegars, and aromatic perfumes.
Today on Cocktail Time
The host introduces the topic of creating better non-alcoholic cocktails, or mocktails, offering tips, tricks, and recipes to elevate the mocktail experience beyond simple fruit juices and syrups. He mentions a bonus mocktail recipe available to Patreon supporters in the next e-book, which will focus on non-alcoholic ingredients and cocktails.
What You’ll Need
The host references a previous video that covered zero-ingredient options like non-alcoholic bitters, bourbon, rum, vermouth, Campari, orange liqueur, and absinthe, which can be used to create non-alcoholic versions of classic cocktails. He then lists the tools needed for the three cocktail recipes in the video, including a blender, slow juicer, precision scale, muslin cloth, and optionally a magnetic stirrer.
Zero Mojito - Tips and Recipe
The first mocktail is the Zero Mojito, which uses mint tea syrup. The host shares tips for mocktails, such as avoiding flavorless ingredients and using tea or coffee to bridge flavors. He suggests using tea or coconut water for soda and freezing tea into ice cubes to enhance flavor. The mint tea syrup is made with coconut water, store-bought mint tea, sugar, and optional green food coloring. The recipe involves heating coconut water, steeping mint tea, straining the mixture, and adding an equal amount of sugar by weight. Fermented ingredients like kombucha add acidity and bubbles, while saline solution boosts flavors. The Zero Mojito is built in a highball glass with lime juice, mint tea syrup, saline solution, and kombucha, garnished with a mint bouquet.
The Penicillin…ish - Tips and Recipe
The second mocktail, the Penicillin…ish, aims to replicate the flavors of a full-bodied sour cocktail. The host suggests adding spicy ingredients like ginger or chili to replace the "kick" of alcohol and using smoky ingredients like lapsang souchong tea or smoky paprika to achieve smoky flavors. Milk and whey add creaminess and body, and aromatic perfumes like orange blossom water can add a sensory touch. Vinegars and shrubs add complexity, and the host uses a lemon vinegar acidifier made by neutralizing white wine vinegar with baking soda and adding lemon zest, citric acid, and malic acid. The smoky honey ginger syrup is made with lapsang souchong tea, floral honey, and ginger juice. The Penicillin-ish is made by combining the smoky syrup, lemon vinegar acidifier, and whey in a shaker, then double straining it over ice and garnishing with candied ginger and lapsang souchong tea perfume.
Strawberry Punch - Tips and Recipe
The final recipe is a non-alcoholic Strawberry Punch, using a milk base for body and balsamic vinegar for acidity. The host recommends enhancing cocktails with spices like cinnamon or vanilla and using gomme syrup for added silkiness. The base for the punch is hibiscus tea, and the other ingredients include balsamic vinegar, strawberry, powdered chili, and demerara syrup. The cocktail is made by blending strawberries, hibiscus tea, demerara gomme syrup, balsamic vinegar, and chili powder, then adding the mixture to warm milk to curdle it. The mixture is strained through a muslin cloth and served over ice, garnished with orange.
Bottom of The Glass - Fix the Pumps!
The host recommends "Fix the Pumps" by Darcy O’Neal, a book about soda, which can enhance mocktails.
Outro & Recipes!
The host encourages viewers to comment if they participate in Dry January or Sober October and to subscribe to the channel for more Cocktail Time episodes.
