No Way! Whey!

[Craig E]

Latest experiment is clarified milk.

 

Following this recipe, I heated whole milk and  added lemon juice. After letting it curdle, I strained it through cheesecloth then coffee filters. The result was a translucent yellow-green liquid. Not especially clear (apparently I'd need much more serious filters to achieve that), but different enough in appearance from milk to give it some possibilities for cocktails.

 

(Meanwhile threw a pinch of salt on the strained curds and made a great ricotta pizza out of it!)

 

First drink experiment with the clarified milk was following an internet recipe for a bourbon milk punch. Bourbon, milk, vanilla, simple, nutmeg atop. 

 

This was rather meh, and I realized I have a big jar of whey and no good plans for using it.

 

Then I remembered the bottle of Fee Bros. cardamon bitters ("Boker's style") that someone gave me a while back. In taste and especially aroma, these are strongly redolent of root beer flavor. I thought, root beer + sweet dairy flavors = root beer float, so that became my goal for a new concoction.

 

Since Averna amaro has a pretty strong cola flavor, I thought it could play a sizable role. It took a few trials to settle on the best base spirit. I worked with some overproof demerara rum split with Jamaican rum, but these were too assertive in their rumminess. Something column-stilled would work better, and I settled on Flor de Cana 4 after deciding a shot of it wasn't all that different an experience than a nose-burning Coca-Cola burp. Split it with bourbon.

 

So in the end it was 3/4 oz. each Flor de Cana, Elijah Craig bourbon, Averna, and clarified milk, plus 1/4 oz. simple syrup and two dashes Boker's bitters. Garnished with a brandied cherry. 

[Tri2Cook]

7 hours ago, Craig E said:

So in the end it was 3/4 oz. each Flor de Cana, Elijah Craig bourbon, Averna, and clarified milk, plus 1/4 oz. simple syrup and two dashes Boker's bitters. Garnished with a brandied cherry. 

Did you like the result? You said you started with root beer float in mind, did it get you there? Just curious because it sounds pretty interesting to me.

[Craig E]

4 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

Did you like the result? You said you started with root beer float in mind, did it get you there? Just curious because it sounds pretty interesting to me.

Good but not great, I'd say. I did manage a Coke float/root beer float flavor pretty well, but the final drink wasn't as dynamic as I hoped. The whey is not a concentrated flavor (in cocktail terms) so not easy to feature and retain a vibrant drink. (I'd make an analogy to using orange juice instead of lemon as an acid in a mixed drink.) Guess there's a reason cream rather than milk is often called for in cocktails. 

 

So I think better success with my clarified milk might come in experiments that don't try to feature the dairy flavor, but rather move in other directions that might benefit from a more subtle lactic factor. I may just shake some superfine sugar into it and play with a "milk simple syrup." And I think next try will be something with lemon juice. Might work well in something in a Collins or sidecar realm.