March (It's April 23rd, sorry) Drink of the Month: Nui Nuance

 I should probably read less, because sometimes reading gets me in trouble - especially if I'm reading about food and drinks. I read an article about tacos al pastor, and suddenly I'm trying to source ancho chiles and achiote powder. Or I read about re-purposing banana peels by turning them into simple syrup, and then I have a fridge full of banana sludge (more on that next week). Over Christmas, I read an article about savory cocktail ingredients, specifically using garum as a seasoning agent in cocktails. Garums are essentially ancient fish sauces (they can be made from lots of different matter however, including beef or mushrooms) that are made by fermenting proteins in their own enzymes (sometimes with koji added).

I understand if throwing fermented anchovy guts into a cocktail sounds gross, but the people in the article swore by the process (LINK). That was intriguing enough to get me started searching for recipes. I read through a few, and I found that most of the creators made their way to garums through the Noma Guide to Fermentation. With my curiosity sparked, I spent the better part of my Christmas break reading the 300+ page reference library of a book, learning about techniques I'd never have the time or space to master. It was a fun learning experience, but I ended up just buying some high quality colatura di alici (Italian fish sauce) instead of dropping $400 trying to make a home fermentation rig with buckets of meat slop. Maybe not the best overall use of my time, but at least I didn't add a greenhouse rig to the garage to harvest barley spores for fermenting.

Failed Batters

With my fancy fish sauce in hand, it was time to try my own drink boosted with an umami bomb. The Pearl Diver was the most recommended cocktail - basically a cold version of the hot buttered rum. I mixed up some hot buttered rum batter and then dosed portions of the batter with various umami sources - miso paste, colatura di alici, and oyster sauce. Unfortunately, none of these batters wanted to stay in suspension well, and the resulting pearl divers turned out too greasy (although I did pick up some cool pearl diver glasses to use for the occasion). Luckily, the Pearl Diver has a cousin, the Nui Nui, that contains virtually all the same ingredients, minus the butter. Cocktail Club spent the next hour playing with fish sauce in Nui Nui builds to get our proportions just right. Too much fish juice and the cocktail smelled like an old aquarium. But get it just right, and the umami helped the vanilla, cinnamon, and allspice really sing.

But was this just Stockholm syndrome? Had we invested too many hours into making garums work and trick ourselves into thinking that they added anything? Happily, I can report that I made another batch of Nui Nuis at our last club, when we had a few extra visitors. Despite being completely grossed out at the thought of adding fish sauce to a drink, our guests both preferred the garum dosed version, and finished their whole drinks happily. Add the gut sauce, you won't regret it!

Ingredients: 2 oz rum (I used a blend of .75 oz aged Jamaican pot still rum, .75 oz Haitian column still rum, and .5 oz Charanda blanco), 1 oz orange juice, .75 oz cinnamon syrup*, .75 oz lime juice, .25 oz allspice dram, .25 oz vanilla syrup**, less than one half barspoon of fish sauce (between 1/8 and 1/16 oz), tiki bitters.

Preparation: To make the Cinnamon Syrup - add two cinnamon sticks, roughly broken (not pulverized) to .75 cup of sugar and an equal amount of water (by weight). Allow to simmer on stove until sugar is completely dissolved, then remove from heat and allow to steep for 30 minutes until cool. Strain and bottle.

To make the Vanilla Syrup: Add two tsp of vanilla paste to .75 cup of sugar and an equal amount of water (by weight). Allow to simmer on stove until sugar is completely dissolved, then remove from heat and allow to steep for 30 minutes until cool. Fine Strain with mesh and cheesecloth and bottle.

Combine all ingredients except the bitters  in a Boston shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a Pearl Diver glass filled with crushed ice, and add bitters to top. Garnish with a lit cinnamon stick or (if the fish scent is too strong) a bouquet of mint.