From Peel To Pulp, How To Make The Most Of Fruits & Veggies In Zero-Waste Cocktails
Whether you are creating a zero-waste home bar or experimenting with different parts of a fruit or vegetable for inducing flavour into your drinks, there are some clever hacks that will enable you to squeeze taste out of all the elements in fresh produce.
Cucumbers, strawberries, watermelons, limes, oranges and several herbs like mint, basil, thyme and rosemary are commonly used to make delicious cocktails and many times, their stalks or skins are thrown into the trash.
As well, we end up using the leaves of herbs for garnishes when the most potent flavour in fact lies in the stalks. And sometimes, we are quick to throw out cucumber skins when they can instead be used to infuse an umami touch into certain gin based cocktails.
Fruits and vegetables can actually be used in their entirety to accentuate the taste of several boozy drinks. Various parts of fruits and vegetables are used by mixologists to produce infusions, syrups and garnishes that utilise every bit of flavour these ingredients can offer. Evidently, there are several methods to extract maximum taste out of fruits and vegetables to then incorporate them into cocktail mixology. This is as much about adding flavours to drinks as about eliminating waste and protecting ecology.
Read on below to know more about some of the ways in which parts of fruits and vegetables can be used to mix drinks:
Citrus Peels For Garnish And Aroma
Peels of citrus fruits like lemons, tangerines and oranges pack a zesty, bitter and tart taste which adds a flavourful layer to cocktails. Garnishing a whisky sour with a twisted orange peel introduces into it some complex bitter notes that go well with the intense taste of the spirit and lime juice mix. You can use a zester to remove thin strips of the peels and twist them into spiral shapes for garnish. Alternatively, you can muddle the thin strips with sugar to release their aromas and then add this mix to water while making flavoured simple syrup for the cocktail.
Vegetable And Fruit Peels For Garnish
Use cucumber or radish peels to add an umami flavour to cocktails which already carry a savoury touch. When preparing a cocktail using Tanqueray No. Ten gin and tonic water, you can use a cucumber peel as a garnish so its distinct taste seeps into the drink giving it a subtle but refreshing flavour. Other fruit peels like the skins of apples or pears can also be incorporated into drinks like sangria, aperol fizz or other fruity concoctions which are slightly sweet-forward mixes. These fruit peels elevate the sour, sweet, tangy qualities of the boozy drink lending them a cheerful touch.
For Liquor Infusions
One of the best ways to use fruit and veggie peels or pulp is to add them to spirits to make flavoured liquors at home. You can open up a bottle of Ciroc Ultra Premium Vodka to add to it limes, cucumbers, oranges and even apples by pouring the drink into a large vessel and letting the peels settle into it so their flavours can steep. Store the mixture in a cool place for several days without allowing any moisture set in so the peels can do their job of oozing flavour into the spirit. A similar process can be followed to infuse gin, rum and wines too and the spirits can later be used to build complex cocktails.
Flavoured Syrups
Along with pouring lime juice into the making of simple syrup, you can use lime zest to eliminate waste. But go the extra mile and make flavoured simple syrups using lime peels or apple shavings by crafting slightly thicker concoctions resembling the consistency of honey to bring forward the bitter and sweet qualities of the fruits. These will be closer in taste to the citrus bitters used to augment different tiki cocktails.
Make Flavoured Ice
In summers, instead of using chunks of fruit to make flavoured ice, you can put fruit peels and pulps to use for crafting delicious and aromatic ice cubes that would chill cocktails. Use orange and apple skins, leftover flesh from limes and even the skins of raw mangoes to craft these fun looking ices. Also add mint or basil sprigs to the square racks in the ice cube so when the water freezes around them, the squares cast a bright green glow.
