Hi this is Chris fromABarAbove.comand today we’re going to learn on of the essential steps, one of the building blocks in mixology, and that is infusions.
Now before we begin learning about infusions, I highly recommend that you look into your local laws, I remember back in 2010 I was managing restaurants and I would here that the ABC was going after the highest profile bars in San Francisco. They were raiding them and seizing all the infused alcohol they had and making them pour the infusions down the drains. There were also penalties and fines involved, not only that, but you don’t want to be on the ABC’s radar for breaking the law.
Now in 2011, we are very fortunate in that California passed Senate Bill SB 32 which overturned that law and allowed us to legally infuse alcohol and serve to our guests. Now not every state is that lucky. I know that in Tennessee right now, as of June 2013, the ABC is actively going after any restaurant that is infusing alcohol and serving it to their guest. So make sure that you understand the laws in your state, and county.
The general principles of infusion are very easy, essentially you are just making an alcoholic tea. You are going to add whatever substance you are going to infuse in your alcohol in a glass container, and just pour your alcohol over the top of it. The alcohol is then going to strip away any of the oils, sugars or juices that are present in the infusion jar. So the process couldn’t be easier.
Now that we have all scientific mumbo jumbo and legal jargon out of the way, let’s get hands on with this and have a little fun. I’ve prepared 15 lemons by rinsing them off and make sure there is nothing on the outside layer. Now I am just going to zest this away from the pith. When you do that, oils will be expressed and be released into the environment. I have prepared a bowl with a little alcohol, in this case vodka, and I’m going to try to capture as much of the oils as possible. What you’re going to do is drag your peeler right across the top. The other thing you want to make sure is that you are not adding any of the pith, or the white portion of any citrus, as it is the most bitter portion of the fruit and will make your infusion bitter. The peeler I have I actually spent a year looking for this exact one, testing a few of them out and finally finding this peeler. This peeler is very good at just removing the rind and not grabbing much of the white pith underneath. I remember that before I found this peeler I would have to make a pile of these lemon skins on a table and slowly begin to skin away the white pith from the rinds. At that point I would have to do 2-3 times as much work. So find a good quality zester if you can and experiment with it until you find something that works, you want the right tools for the job. I will post a link to the same one I found and hopefully it will be the same experience for you.
The equipment that you need for infusing is probably stuff you already have laying around the house. The first thing you need is whatever you will be infusing into your alcohol. The second thing that you will need is alcohol, and a lot of it. In this case we will be using vodka. The last thing that you will need is this super fancy infusion machine. I’ll tell you a good story about that later. I use this particular glass jar for catering events. All you need is a nonreactive container that you can store your infusion in for an extended period of time, typically a few weeks. Whenever possible I like to use glass, but if you are in a restaurant setting and you have a Cambro lying around, that is what I have used in the past when working in restaurants.
Speaking of the past, I had a restaurant job where I was doing a lot of infusions, and my roommate at the time thought I had to use this crazy machine where you put your ingredients in, add your alcohol and some magic happens and then all of a sudden you have an infused alcohol. It’s funny to look back on that now, but my roommate thought that for about 6 months until one day I had to do some at home and destroyed that mental image for him. Anyways, that is all the equipment you need.
Like I said, you probably have a lot of this stuff at home. This is just another example for another storage device that you can use at home. This just happens to be an old pasta sauce container. This one is Classico’s Creamy Alfredo, and it was delicious by the way. Just make sure that if you are going to use these that you rinse them , and clean them so that there is no longer any smell, odors or residue on the inside of the glass. Then you can absolutely use these for a small batch of infusions.
All of our work is essentially done. I have added our lemon zests to our glass container here, then poured vodka over the top of it. Now all we will be doing is monitoring it every day by giving it a shake, or a stir, until it has the tastes and the aroma that I want. We will keep you posted on that.
Be sure to put a lid on it and keep it in a cool dry place. We are trying to keep as much of the oils and other compound in our infusion and sunlight will begin to those down. This is the reason we keep our infusions away from sunlight.
So until then I hope to see you guys soon, and have a great shift,
