Experiments in Curaçao

[Kerry Beal]

Over on the Mai Tai thread the subject of using Créole Shrubb in place of Curaçao came up. Apparently Créole Shrubb is made with rhum agricole - however that hasn't stopped me from attempting to make something similar using some microwave aged Wray and Nephew overproof.

Jerry Thomas's recipe 188 for Curaçao uses fresh sweet orange rind and when I read the ingredients listed for the Shrubb it seems to list dried bitter orange rind.

So in the interest of experimentation - I have split the rum into 2 approximately 400 ml batches and added 15 grams of dried bitter orange rind to one and 40 grams of fresh organic valencia orange zest to the other. To each I also added 2 cloves, 4 allspice berries, 10 grinds of nutmeg, 1/2 of a bourbon vanilla bean that I fetched out the extract that's been steeping since last year, a small chunk of saigon cinnamon and 5 black peppercorns.

I'm going to agitate them daily for about 10 days then see how they taste before filtering or leaving to steep a little longer.

[lesliec]

You've got some great colour in there already, Kerry. Or is that just what the W&N picked up from the oak?

[Kerry Beal]

You've got some great colour in there already, Kerry. Or is that just what the W&N picked up from the oak?

Yup - that's where the colour came from. I notice the shrubb is much lighter.