Limu Omani, Omani lime, noomi basra, black lime, dried lime in cocktails

[blue_dolphin]

I've been playing around with black limes for a while and I'm curious if anyone else has used this ingredient in cocktails. I'm talking about this stuff:

Available whole in various sizes and colors, ground or powdered, they're all very aromatic, tart, a little bitter and a bit funky.  I believe they are most commonly used to flavor Middle Eastern stews and other long cooking dishes although cookbook authors like Ottolenghi and Nik Sharma have been incorporating it in everything from compound butters to focaccia to ice cream.  It was Nik Sharma's blueberry and black lime ice cream from his book The Flavor Equation that got me thinking about trying it in cocktails.  Below, I'll round up what I found via searching the web and what I've tried.  Seems like there was a little flurry of black lime cocktail articles in 2017 but I haven't seen too much recently.

 

There is an older topic here in the Middle East & Africa Cooking forum, that discusses the use of these limes to make a tea, including this recipe from @Hassouni.  The first cocktail recipe I tried was from this older NYT article: Two Dried Lime Recipes, One Traditional, One Anything But, which adds rum, mint and bitters to that dried lime tea and serves it over ice.  Kind of a black lime mojito.  Very refreshing on a hot day. 

 

I found a Tales of the Cocktail Foundation article about using grated black lime as a cocktail garnish: Heard of Black Lime? Here’s How To Use It. This brings the aroma right to your nose when you begin to taste the cocktail but I'm not a fan of dark particulate matter in my cocktails. I think I've seen the ground lime mixed with salt or sugar to rim cocktail glasses, another thing I'm not a fan of, though this would at least bring a more interesting flavor than just salt or sweet. 

 

This article, The Dark Side of Citrus: Using Black Limes in Cocktails features a cocktail that uses black lime-infused Dolin Blanc vermouth.  I've found that infused vermouth to be a delicious aperitif on its own, over ice, in a spritz or as a cocktail ingredient.  They put one and a half crushed dried limes in a 750 ml bottle of blanc vermouth, infused 2 days in the fridge, then strained. The tart, bitter and funky flavors go very well with that slightly sweet vermouth.  Instead of crushing the limes, I've switched to weighing out the coarsely ground stuff.  My dried limes weigh between 3 and 10g and I've been using 15-20g of ground lime per 750 g bottle.  15g is good for drinking as an aperitif, I boosted it up to 20g to get more flavor when using it as a cocktail ingredient.  It's just a bit more tart and bitter but I still find it quite pleasant to sip.  

I've used the black lime-infused blanc vermouth in a white negroni-like cocktail (equal parts infused vermouth, gin and Salers) and also modified the Golden Negroni recipe from Ventura Spirits website to use the infused blanc vermouth with their Amaro Angeleno and sage-y Wilder Gin.  It also worked in a black lime Boulevardier (equal parts infused vermouth, Bruto Americano, and rye).

I tried infusing regular dry vermouth with black limes and found it a bit harsh without the sweetness in the blanc vermouth. 

 

Another cocktail success for me is a black lime gimlet, based on this recipe: Sun-Dried Lime Gimlet that mixes gin with a dried lime cordial.  I think they got confused about the weight of dried limes vs fresh limes as they call for 7 oz of dried limes or about 4 dried limes for the cordial.  You can see how many limes are in that 8 oz bag in my photo above and I've already used a bunch out of the bag.

For the cordial, I generally follow their recipe, using 50 g of the ground dried lime, 1 1/2 cup sugar, 1 quart water and up the tartness with 1/2 T citric acid plus 1 t tartaric acid as @KatieLoeb included in the homemade lime cordial recipe she shared here.  Heat 10 min, cool overnight and strain.  This makes a delicious gimlet and is a great sweetener for hot or iced tea. I especially like it with chamomile tea.

 

In this article, Black Limes are Putting a Twist on (and in) Cocktails, I saw a mention of infusing gin with black limes. I tried that and used it in a martini with the infused blanc vermouth and in a gin & tonic.  Both tasted quite good to me but the brownish hue was a bit off-putting in drinks I expect to be sparklingly clear.  

 

I'd like to try a black lime margarita.  I could just infuse the tequila or I could make a black lime-cello sort of thing that I could sub in for the Cointreau.  Or I could do both. 

 

Finally, a couple of comments on the dried limes I've been using.  Those really black Villa Jerada brand dried limes in the middle of my photo above are my favorite whole dried limes.  They are super dry, easy to crush up, have very few seeds (which some people say should be removed to avoid bitterness) and add a good visual impact if you are grating them as a garnish. I get them at a local import shop but they are also available online from multiple sources. The smaller, paler limes on the left in my photo are less expensive and taste pretty much the same but have a lot of seeds and are kind of tough rather than brittle so harder to crush so I tend to use them where they'll be used whole.  I've found the coarsely ground or crushed dried lime on the right to work quite well for infusions in things that can be readily filtered.  Some types of are ground more finely and might be harder to strain out, particularly in something like the ice cream I mentioned above.

 

Anyone else using black limes in cocktails?