Citrus zest in cocktails

[Kent Wang]

First, of course, you need to de-wax your citrus. Then, you can make an oleo saccharum for Regent's Punch.

Well, I tried to peel the oranges with my cheap peeler and was having a hell of a time. Then I broke out my Microplane and did much better. I could do an orange in about a minute. I didn't go the oleo saccharum route because with the small pieces of zest produced by the Microplane, muddling with sugar didn't seem necessary.

Recalling a discussion I had with Sam Kinsey, I decided to infuse the zest in rum. I filled a bowl with about 400 ml of Havana Club white, and Microplaned over it, so as to capture as much of the oils as possible. I let it soak for about an hour and strained out the zest.

I didn't make a punch because I was all out of cognac, but I did make a daiquiri with the infusion:

1.5 oz Havana Club white

0.5 oz orange zest infused rum

.75 oz lime juice

.75 oz simple syrup

It was excellent. Very orangey, and that's with the infusion diluted with plain rum. If I didn't know better I would've thought it had orange juice in it.

But it's actually more effective and versatile than orange juice because orange juice is rather watery and too sweet. There are few cocktails with orange juice that I like.

You can also use the infusion in other cocktails that call for orange curacao or triple sec. A margarita made with this really sings with orange flavor, and I dare say is more accessible to the layman than the standard Cointreau version, as Cointreau has all kinds of other funky flavors in addition to orange.

You can do this with all kinds of other citruses, though I haven't tried yet. If you're going to have some friends over and know you're going to go through a few citruses, then you can zest them all beforehand.

Back to Regent's Punch: is it really necessary to make an oleo saccharum? Why don't you just Microplane the zest into one of the base liquors, and add the appropriate amount of sugar? This seems easier, and may actually extract more flavor from the zest.