From Humble Salt To Fancy Freezing: How To Up Your Cocktail Game
Dave Arnold can work some serious magic with a cocktail shaker. But he's no alchemist — Arnold, who runs the Manhattan bar Booker and Dax, takes a very scientific approach to his craft.
Arnold, author of Liquid Intelligence: The Art and Science of the Perfect Cocktail, has some advanced tricks to help you up your game in time for holiday cocktail parties. And while some of them — like his liquid nitrogen techniques — aren't for the faint of heart, one of his favorite secrets is a simple, low-tech ingredient: salt.
"That's what I tell everyone," he tells NPR's Ari Shapiro. "Next time you make cocktails, make a drink, don't add any salt [and] taste it. Then just put a pinch in afterwards, stir it and taste the difference."
As for that liquid nitrogen, it's the key to the Thai Basil Daiquiri, one of Arnold's signature drinks. The basil's anise flavor notes make it a fantastic herb for drinks, he says.
How to muddle your herbs with liquid nitrogen: Left: Freeze your herbs. Center: After muddling, it should look like this. Right: Add liquor, let thaw, then add syrups and shake with ice. Strain drink through a tea strainer into a chilled coupe glass.
(A note of caution: Liquid nitrogen is extremely cold – Arnold works with it at minus 196 degrees Celsius. Read the warning label before attempting to use it.)
In traditional muddling, grinding releases an herb's flavors and oils into a cocktail. "The problem is, [a muddled leaf] starts turning black almost immediately," when enzymes in the herb react with oxygen, Arnold explains.
But when the leaves are frozen with liquid nitrogen, Arnold says, they become so cold and brittle that they can be easily powered and used to create fine infusions. And because those enzymes are deactivated by high-proof ethanol – booze – combining the powder with liquor retains the herb's bright color, Arnold explains.
Watch Dave Arnold explain how to make his Thai Basil Daiquiri using liquid nitrogen.
Eater YouTubeArnold also has a pretty spectacular party trick that uses a much older technology: a saber, used to knock the top off a bottle of Champagne or sparkling wine. Luckily, almost any kitchen knife, like a chef's knife, will do.
If you do it properly, Arnold says, you needn't worry about ending up drinking shards of glass. "I've done high-speed photography of it, and looked at it, and the force and the pressure are such that the glass shards always travel away from the beverage."
If you listen to the conversation in the audio player above, Arnold will walk you through his sabering technique. Just take care where you try this technique, he notes. "I have broken a window in my bathroom" doing this, he says, so try it out "in a place that you're not worried."
9(MDE1MTIxMDg0MDE0MDQ3NTY3MzkzMzY1NA001))
Transcript
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The holiday season means cocktail parties, and we're about to give you some advanced tricks to step up your game.
(SOUNDBITE OF COCKTAIL SHAKER)
SHAPIRO: The man with the cocktail shaker is Dave Arnold. He runs the bar Booker and Dax in Manhattan. He takes a very scientific approach to his craft. He took a train down to D.C. to meet us, carrying a three-foot sword - more on that in a minute. Here at our headquarters, he fired up the blender.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLENDER)
SHAPIRO: He tempted us before lunch. Well, I think for the purposes of journalism I need to taste this daiquiri. He even shared a secret about ice.
DAVE ARNOLD: (Whispering) People love watching you cut the ice.
SHAPIRO: Then he took things to the varsity level. Woah. The liquid that was in the glass has just hit the table and turned into a puff of smoke and disappeared. As it sort of cascades in these foggy rolls off the table onto the floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF SIZZLING)
SHAPIRO: Liquid nitrogen - it is not for the faint of heart. It is extremely cold.
ARNOLD: This is minus 196 Celsius.
SHAPIRO: Read the warning labels first and then, if you're brave, use it to chill your cocktail glasses. Oh yeah. It is ice cold. This is like a glass that has been in the freezer, but it just had liquid nitrogen in it for 10 seconds.
ARNOLD: Right.
SHAPIRO: This ingredient is the key to one of Arnold's signature drinks - a twist on the traditional daiquiri.
ARNOLD: I have Thai basil here, which is a fantastic herb for drinks because it's got kind of an anise note to it. So in nutritional muddling, what you do is grind it like this, and you're releasing the flavors and the oils from the herb. Problem is, it starts turning black almost immediately. This is caused by enzymes called polyphenol oxidase enzymes. Now, when you freeze with liquid nitrogen, it's so cold, and the stuff becomes so brittle that I can powder it.
SHAPIRO: So you're dropping the Thai basil into a metal shaker and you're about to pour in the liquid nitrogen, swirling it around in the shaker.
ARNOLD: Now, I'm going to muddle it.
SHAPIRO: Wait, is it already frozen? Just by shaking it? Oh my God. Wait. These leaves are like - hold on a second. These leaves are completely brittle and frozen from just five seconds in the liquid nitrogen.
ARNOLD: Right. Now, watch this.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRUNCHING)
SHAPIRO: It sounds like potato chips in there. But it's basil leaves.
ARNOLD: Look how finely that's powdered. So now, if I would let this thaw right now, the oxygen would get right to these things and they would turn black. Luckily for us, these enzymes are also deactivated by high-proof ethanol.
SHAPIRO: High-proof ethanol meaning booze.
ARNOLD: Booze. So I'm pouring two ounces of rum and I'm going to pour it in. And depending on how cold it is we'll get a little floof.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLOOF)
SHAPIRO: That was a beautiful floof. That was a plume of smoke coming up out of the shaker.
ARNOLD: Yeah it's - oh, I didn't make lime juice. Hold on a second. Hold on one second. OK, so...
SHAPIRO: So you're adding the lime juice to the muddled basil leaves and the rum.
ARNOLD: Correct. OK. And I'm going to add some simple syrup, pinch of salt, which is the secret ingredient. You know, that's what I tell everyone. Next time you make cocktails, make a drink, don't add any salt, taste it. Then just put a pinch in afterwards, stir it and taste the difference.
SHAPIRO: That is simultaneously totally surprising, because I've never put salt in a cocktail, and, also, seems like it should be obvious because everybody who cooks knows that salt makes everything taste better.
ARNOLD: Right. And it totally is the secret ingredient.
SHAPIRO: OK. So if people take nothing else away from this conversation - low-tech trick - add a pinch of salt.
ARNOLD: Exactly.
SHAPIRO: Back to the Thai basil daiquiri.
ARNOLD: Ready to shake?
SHAPIRO: Ready to shake.
ARNOLD: Hit, seal, shake.
SHAPIRO: Wow. That is the most beautiful "Wizard Of Oz" Emerald City green I have ever seen. Let me give this a taste. That is so good. The taste of the basil comes just, like, singing through.
ARNOLD: Yeah. It's good, right?
SHAPIRO: Dave Arnold's new book, "Liquid Intelligence," is full of recipes and tricks like this one. Some of his tips involve centrifuges, refractometers and carbonator rigs. He also showed us a pretty spectacular party trick that uses a much older technology.
What have you got in your hands here, Dave?
ARNOLD: Well, we have three bottles of champagne, which is always a good thing to bring to a party, and also a legitimate saber.
SHAPIRO: Literally like my-name-is-Inigo-Montoya-you-killed-my-father-prepare-to-die sword.
ARNOLD: Exactly. Exactly like that.
SHAPIRO: I can only imagine what you have in store, and I think we're going to do this outdoors. OK, we're outside of NPR headquarters in the beautiful NoMa neighborhood of Washington D.C. with a few bottles of champagne and a saber.
ARNOLD: Exactly. Exactly. So what we're going to do is the old-school trick of sabering champagne. People get this wrong. They think that somehow you're using a sword or a knife to remove the cork. This is not true. You're actually shattering the neck of the bottle in a very accurate way.
SHAPIRO: In a way that won't end up with people drinking shards of glass.
ARNOLD: Exactly. I've done high-speed photography of it and the glass shards always travel away from the beverage.
SHAPIRO: All right. Show us how it's done.
ARNOLD: All right. Now, there are a couple of things. Now, you want to make sure that your champagne isn't too agitated and that it's cold.
SHAPIRO: OK. And, first, nobody should be standing in the path of the sword.
ARNOLD: Absolutely not.
SHAPIRO: Nobody should be standing in the path of the flying cork.
ARNOLD: Absolutely not.
SHAPIRO: And do you recommend doing this outside generally?
ARNOLD: That depends on your house. I mean, I have broken a window in my bathroom. I recommend...
SHAPIRO: OK, so do it outside.
ARNOLD: Or, you know, in a place that you're not worried, you know?
SHAPIRO: So you're going to start at the fattest part of the bottle
ARNOLD: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: And really quickly run it up the neck to collide with that little ring right under the cork.
ARNOLD: Sure. Five, four, three, two, one.
(CHEERS)
SHAPIRO: L'chaim.
ARNOLD: You want some champagne?
SHAPIRO: I'd be delighted. Happy holidays.
Dave Arnold runs the bar Booker and Dax in Manhattan. His new book is "Liquid Intelligence: The Art And Science Of The Perfect Cocktail." I'm going to tweet out a photo of my inaugural attempt at sabering. You can find it on Twitter at @arishapiro. The show is also on Facebook and Twitter at @npratc. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
300x250 Ad
300x250 Ad