IBA Cocktail No.9… and Appalachian Industrialism Revisited
Well, quarantine has been interesting. I must say that with two distance runners in the house who are still training, we go through a LOT of food. Many know that I am committed to making sure that they always have a hot breakfast and a hot lunch, especially when they are in school. Quarantine has not been any different in our house. So, I have been cooking up a storm. From homemade pizza dough to Appalachian favorites like buckwheat cakes and sausage, we have been eating well. To be safer we have been Instacart-ing (is that a word?) our groceries, and I have been wiping them all down with disinfectant and unpacking them on the porch. The markets here are limiting some quantities of items. Now let me say that I am not a hoarder. I have not bought extra toilet paper since this whole thing began. But there is one limitation with which I just cannot abide. And, that is the limitation on eggs. One dozen eggs? Before we were quarantined we ate two dozen eggs per week. This rationing becomes exacerbated when you are trying to bake a dessert every day to feed two hungry boys.
Replacing Eggs
Now I am industrious. Pancakes and waffles have been getting egg replacer made with chickpeas and ground flaxseed. This substitution has the added benefit of making our pancakes and waffles vegan! My oldest son is eating these in protest. Not because they are vegan. He loves vegan food. And not because he can taste the difference, because he can’t. But, when he found out there were chickpeas in his waffles? It was like a capital crime had been committed in our house. So a little advice: be smarter than me. Don’t tell anyone there are chickpeas in the waffles! I will say that whenever you need a binder this egg replacer works great. You can buy it on Amazon if you just search for egg replacer, or you can make your own if, like us, your pantry has both ground flaxseed and chickpea flour as staples. You can use just ground flaxseed to make “flax eggs,” or you can use just chickpea flour to do the same. The flaxseed ratio is 1 tablespoon flaxseed to 3 tablespoons water, and the chickpea ratio is 3 tablespoons chickpea flour to 3 tablespoons water. If you are mixing the two I use 1 teaspoon of flaxseed and one and one half tablespoons of chickpea flour to two and one half tablespoons water. If it looks too thick add an additional half tablespoon water. After you mix it together it should approximate the consistency and volume of a beaten egg or maybe a little thicker.
What about drinks?
Enter Aquafaba. Aquafaba just might be the darling of the cocktail world in drinks requiring an egg white. First, let me make a confession that until this year I had never had a drink with an egg white in it (at least not that I knew of). The prospect of eating raw eggs just didn’t enthrall me. This year I did take the plunge, and I have to say my first egg laden drink was quite delicious. But now it’s quarantine. And we are rationing eggs like they come from a golden goose. As a result, even if I didn’t need an excuse to use an egg replacer, there is no way a real egg is making it into a cocktail in this house right now. Fortunately for me I had bought a container of powdered aquafaba before the world closed. So, this week I made another IBA cocktail, the Clover Club.
The Clover Club
1/2 oz. Raspberry Syrup
1/2 oz. lemon juice
3 oz. Gin
1 egg white or egg replacer
Dry shake in a tin on tin shaker 30-45 seconds with just one ice cube to emulsify the egg or the egg replacer, then add the remaining ice and shake vigorously for 10 second before straining into a cocktail glass.
Enjoy while thinking forward to a time when quarantine is over and you could be in a real club… with people!
True Confessions
I had no idea what to do with the aquafaba, and, aside from giving me the ratio of powder to water, the container was zero help. So, I experimented. It didn’t seem like a good idea to just dump the powder and water in with my alcohol in my tin on tin shaker. Forget the mixing. Who can bring themselves to dump any amount of water into the gin? I felt like it should at least be mixed together first. So, I put the aquafaba and the water (enough for one egg white in the top of my Boston shaker and swirled it around to mix it, then I just dumped it right in with the mixers and the ice and shook the whole thing a little longer than normal. It worked okay.
Someone on a cocktail facebook page then suggested I just dump the powder right into the drink and skip the water. This did NOT work. The powder remained granular, so you MUST dissolve it before adding it to the cocktail. On the same page, however, I did learn that you should “dry shake” the aquafaba with the contents BEFORE adding the ice. To “dry shake” means to shake the contents of the cocktail vigorously with only one ice cube and THEN to add the ice and re-shake just long enough to chill the drink (ten seconds people… you only need ten seconds). Incidentally I also learned that you can use the brine from a can of chickpeas for this same purpose, and, at least purportedly, your drink will not taste like beans. You can also freeze this liquid gold from the can in tablespoon quantities in an ice cube tray, and it will work the same after thawing. Round two: The next time I did dry shake the drink and the already reconstituted, powdered aquafaba with one ice cube to emulsify it BEFORE adding the rest of the ice, and that worked much better.
The Verdict
Honestly? I wanted to love the Clover Club, but it was just not my drink. The raspberry syrup made it sugary sweet and masked the gin taste that I love so much. I hate to mess with the IBA recipe, because I don’t want to be thrown out of the guild, but if I was to make it again I would increase the lemon juice by one quarter ounce (to 3/4 oz. lemon juice) and decrease the raspberry syrup by one quarter ounce (to 1/4 oz. raspberry syrup), or I would try making some homemade raspberry syrup that was less sweet and maintained more of the tart flavor of the raspberries which would make the drink lovely. It may be that my syrup is the culprit here. I will say that if you are looking for a drink to introduce those vodka drinkers who are used to their alcohol not tasting like anything to gin, the this one would work well. If you are a dedicated gin drinker, then make this one so that you can say you did, and move on.