Steel Cut Oats

Steel Cut Oats

After working on homemade almond orgeat and understanding the basis and history of it, I decided to try some other versions. Originally a grain based beverage using barley, Orgeat, or Horchata, it is made with rice in Latin America, Chufa in Spain, and widely known using Almonds for that important “secret” ingredient in a classic Mai Tai.

I was experimenting with different nuts and grains for making orgeat at this time and I needed to come up with a non-nut orgeat for a competition that included judge Bridget Albert who has a nut allergy. I decided to try oats and it worked wonderfully.

It is a great base syrup for many tropical or hot drinks. It adds a creamy texture without being dairy and finishes clean with no cloying texture. I’ve mixed it with Tequila, Bourbon, Cognac, Rum and Gin with great success. It’s a lot more versatile than one might think. It is also great with water shaken on ice and served in a tall glass. A very refreshing N/A summer drink.

The following recipe is very simple and worth the small effort to make it at home.  You wont need a ton of oats to make this work as you can see from the following recipe.

Cooking oats and water

In large saucepan add oats and water. Always give yourself room to work with in sauce pans or any pans. Slowly cook the oats on lowest heat setting, covered on stove top burner. Stir often. Do not bring to a boil or simmer.

This should be heated for 3-4 hours.

When done (the oats will be fat and tender) turn off heat and allow to rest to room temperature. Refrigerate this until cool. Remove Cinnamon pieces. With a hand immersion blender, blend this mixture well for about 3 minutes. Let rest for 5-10 minutes and blend again for 2 minutes. Fine strain this into a container that you will now add the sugar to.

Add the sugar and stir until dissolved. Add the cinnamon from the jelly bag back to this mixture. Stir. Now fine strain again and you are done. Keep this refrigerated for up to 6 weeks.

It should have a creamy texture like milk, not gelatinous or gooey.

Hand Blender

This can be used in place of almond orgeat for those with nut allergies. It can be used mixed with water and shaken for a delicious and refreshing non-alcoholic long drink in the summer. It is fantastic in many original cocktails as well. It mixes wonderfully with Tequila, Whiskey, Brandy, Rum.

One of my favorite ways to use this Oat Cream is in an apple butter, hot buttered rum. It makes the hot buttered rum that is satisfying. Creamy, silky smooth texture.. Just what you want when coming in from the cold.

Another simple cocktail/cooler is Rum or Tequila, the Steel Cut Oat Cream/Horchata, fresh lime

Cooking apple butter, oat orgeat, cream butter, water

Add all ingredients to sauce pan. Bring to a simmer. Stir frequently.

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Autumn in the Midwest leading to the holidays means it’s time for hot drinks. Apple Butter is a great fall ingredient to Hot Toddies, Hot Buttered Rums and hot teas…as well as toasted muffins, waffles and pancakes.

From start to finish it will take about 48 hours in your oven, but the concentrated and caramelized flavor of the apples and spices is well worth the time. The ingredients are simple. The process is the magic. Investing the time and attention to bring something special out of these simple ingredients is well worth it. It will also make your home smell like spiced apple pie for a few days. Not bad dividends.

Bamix Immersion Blender

Kuhn-Rikor Peeler

Cinnamon, Clove, Allspice, Mace

Apple Slicer/Corer

Cleaned Apples in Dutch oven

Peels, ends, spices, cider

Strained spiced juice

Cooking apples with spiced juice

Cook one more hour covered. After one hour you will remove the top and stir and return to the oven uncovered. Lower heat in oven to 250 degrees. This will now enter the longest portion  of the process.

Periodic stirring is necessary to keep the apple butter uniform in the slow dehydration and carmelization process. The apples will eventually reduce by about 2/3. When the top of the apple butter begins to brown, it is time to stir. Probably about once every 30-45 minutes or so.

Pureed apples cooking with top off

Overnight the oven should be set low about 200 degrees or turned off if you plan to be asleep for a long time or are away. You can set the oven to 200 again in the morning.

The apple butter will continue to brown, thicken and reduce.

Apple butter midway through process

This process cannot be rushed by turning up the heat. There is too much of a chance that the apple butter will burn. You can turn off the oven if you will not be home for several hours. You can resume the process when you return. The Apple Butter will be chocolate brown when down.

Finished Apple Butter

Apple Butter in clean 12 oz jars

XL Cobbler Shaker

All Metal Boston Shaker

  The emphasis in the modern cocktail world has been on Boston style shakers and mixing glasses.

The 2 part Boston shaker/glass/Hawthorne strainer set is the pro bartender’s all around choice.

But there are other choices that can be more specialized, esthetically pleasing, or just a personal choice.

My choice for making many cocktails at home is the free standing mixing glass.

The emphasis of this article is to show some alternatives for the home bartender and the benefits or reasons for using all of these tools in mixing cocktails.

The two most common sets for mixing drinks are the Boston shaker set and the Cobbler Shaker set.

The origins of the names for these sets are debatable. But the Cobbler shaker is most likely named after the pre-prohibition classic style drink, “Cobbler”, that were made generally with wine, syrups and other spirits and decorated with fruit. Shaken and strained over cracked ice for a refreshing summer tipple. It was a very popular, and very old, drink style that most likely lent it’s name to this shaker style.

It consists of 3 pieces. The base in two pieces that open to allow all ingredients to be added easily. The third piece is a cap that finishes the enclosure. This set is made for shaking drinks.

Positives are aesthetic appearance, clean pour, and all in one unit. Negatives are it doesn’t lend itself to making stirred drinks, can easily stick shut making it a poor choice for busy bartenders, caps can be lost thus rendering the whole unit useless. Best for the home bartender.

Classic Boston Set

The Boston shaker. Two pieces that easily separate along with either a Hawthorn strainer or Julep strainer. The Hawthorne being used to strain from the metal shaker tin, and the julep from the mixing glass.

There is a new breed of bartender using metal on metal shakers these days. While it is generally just a personal choice or statement, there are drawbacks to the double metal set. The metal shaker tins are exactly the same. The difference comes in the mixing glass versus the metal replacement and why you would want to have one or the other. There are benefits to the glass and none for the metal except style points.

The metal tin is not a versatile mixing glass. The tin is thin. It makes an unpleasant tinny noise while shaking. The tin is light, the piston motion for a hard shake is less powerful than the heavier mixing glass. The heavier glass is also well insulated, and the melt of the ice, while shaking, is controlled better. We don’t want our warm hands melting the ice. We want the drink inside to do that.

The mixing glass is just that, a mixing glass. You can build and stir your drinks in the glass and strain them with a julep strainer. You can see your drink being built, which can help in avoiding mistakes.

So while it is mostly a style thing, the metal on metal really does have its drawbacks.

This now brings us to the free standing mixing glass that has been kind of lost in our modern world. Familiar in many old movies with a host making “pitchers” of martinis, the free standing mixing glass really is a beautiful idea.

Either for entertaining or making several cocktails at once that may not fit in the Boston or Cobbler shaker or just for aesthetics as the mixing glass can come in various sizes and be beautifully designed, adorned, shaped, colored and cut. And for simplicity, the pinched lip on many of the old mixing glasses acts as a strainer to keep ice out of your drink. Most of these shown aren’t great for muddling, or for drinks that really need to be shaken, so they have a bit more specialized purpose. The tall pinched lip mixing glases are ideal for Martini’s and Manhattans. Cocktails that are spirit heavy that require stirring.

	Tall pinched lip mixing glass with glass stirrer

Old 50’s style free standing mixing glass with measurements for cocktails

Snifter style mixing glasses with pinched lips

Old style mixing glass that can act as a shaker. Similar to a Cobbler

Japanese Yarai Mixing glass from Cocktail Kingdom

Many of them do not require a strainer because the lip is designed to trap the ice and let the drink flow. Some have tops with valves that open after shaking to strain cocktails. And some are just beautiful mixing glasses meant to stand alone, but do require a julep strainer such as the Yarai mixing glass above.

Since Americans were introduced to Cachaça in a big way over the last 15+ years in the form of the Caipirinha, there has been lot’s of confusion with the method of making a proper one from even the best bartenders around the country and the world.

Some things don’t fundamentally change the cocktail, like using sugar syrup instead of fine sugar. But some things do, like using brown sugar or sugar water instead of super fine sugar.

I have spent a lot of time traveling and living in Brasil and have seen Caipirinhas made from Rio to Recife. There are always some subtle differences to each person making one but there are common denominators to making the classic Caipirinha like a Brazilian.

There are always 4 things that go into a Caipirinha in Brasil. Lime, white superfine sugar, un-aged cachaça and ice. It should be shaken. You can use simple syrup but it absolutely must be at least 2-1 rich syrup. Superfine or “Bar” sugar is the best. It acts to macerate the lime and extract the lime oils and juice as well as dissolve easier than regular table sugar. Once you understand the traditional method and base, you can then do riffs and adjustments on this theme.
 
On a beach it will most likely be made in a makeshift plastic container/shaker and served in a plastic cup.

But in a bar it will more likely be served in a small rocks glass.

The proportions will vary depending on the size of the cup or glass. We will be using an 8 oz rocks glass in the demonstration here.

There are a few important nuances to making this cocktail that I will explain. I am not going to give amounts of the ingredients, it will vary according to glass since that is generally the way you regulate the amounts….and it is a good way to get a feeling for making this without measuring tools…the natural or every day way!

The glass should contain lime pieces to at least half full. An 8 oz rocks glass is perfect for 1 small lime. After that it all flows naturally. If you use a bigger glass, you will need more lime…and sugar.

The table sugar in Brasil is comparable to super fine, or “bar sugar” in the US. It melts and mixes easily. “Bar sugar” is kind of a lost item in bars these days with the prevalent use of simple syrup. Regular table sugar in the US is a bit too coarse for making cocktails, hence the use of bar sugar or simple syrup in cocktails here in the States. It grinds up what you want to muddle too much, and is also not as soluble as the fine sugar. Brown sugar or turbinado is almost non-existent in Brasil and, although it makes a rich Caipirinha and seems rustic, it isn’t used in making a classic one. The use of fine white sugar in this case has one more important effect and that is it finely draws out the juices and oils of the lime in a subtle way that simple syrup does not do quite as well It is also much gentler and doesn’t rip up the limes like coarse sugar does.

Brasilians like things sweet. I like balance, but that is in the eye of the beholder. Adjust sweetness and tartness to your own taste, but be careful not to imbalance the spirits and mixer.

Regular Persian limes in Brasil tend to be smaller than in the US where they sometimes get as big as lemons. That large size can throw off your Caipirinha if you use a giant one in a small glass. So try to purchase medium to small limes. Always adjust to the size of glass. When buying Persian limes, choose limes that are rounder and have smooth skins, with hardly any dimples. The skins of these kinds are thinner so there is more juice, less pith and less bitterness. They are also much easier to juice and muddle. The more elongated limes with dimpled skin tend to have very thick skins and interiors. This means less juice and makes the limes more difficult to juice as well. The extra pith makes them more bitter as well. A few trips to the grocer and you will be able to verify the difference easily.

Notice the two limes pictured above. The top lime is elongated and dimpled. Inside the pith and skin is much more prevalent, making the lime harder and less juicy. The one on the bottom is nearly spherical, and inside the pith and skin is hardly noticeable.

Cachaça is made from sugar cane. It is a style of rum called rhum agricole. The most recognizable rum to most Americans is rhum industriale. Bacardi, Myer’s, Appleton Estate, Mount Gay etc..are all this style. The difference between them is that rhum industriale is distilled from fermented molasses and rum agricole is made from fermented cane juice. The flavors are completely different. In the French Carribbean, rhum agricole is used in a cocktail similar to the Caipirinha, Ti Punch, which is lime juice, cane syrup and rhum agricole.

There are many cachaças in the US market today. Some are old standards from the large industrial distilleries in Brasil like “51”, Pitu, and Velho Barreiro. There are also many home distilled or artisanal cachaças made all over Brasil that may have nothing more than a hand written label. There are also some larger and more artisanal brands of cachaça being produced now such as Novo Fogo and Sagatiba. Finally we have the cachaças made for the US or international markets such as Cabana and Leblon. If you are at a beach or barzinho (bar-zeen-yo) or botequim (bo-che-keen) in Rio,  you will almost assuredly get one of the big national brands like “51” in your caiprinha. There are bars in Brasil now where you can get amazing cocktails and caipirinhas made with a huge array of different cachaças; aged, flavored, from different regions and in different styles..etc..

For this classic we will use the old standard. But my aim here is not to stifle creativity or experimentation with aged spirits, other fruits, flavors, different sugars etc….It is just to show the classic form of Caipirinha in Brasil…But Please Be free!

This drink is always made with cracked or chunks of ice. Clear bag ice from the grocery store is perfect. If you are using something like Kold Draft, then you will have to crack it. It is important that the ice melts some with the drink. The drink is muddled and built in the glass, then shaken and poured back into the glass or cup. There are always exceptions when at the beach depending on tools and cups and makeshift shakers. It is important that your glass be FILLED with ice. This brings the temperature down fast, making sure that there isn’t too much melt in your Caipirinha.

Your lime

Cut the ends off your lime

 Cut the lime lengthwise into quarters
 

 Cut the center white rib out of each quarter

 Cut the pieces into eighths

 Add to glass

 Add sugar to taste (2 regular spoons)

 Muddle until sugar is dissolved and all juice extracted

Fill glass with ice

 Fill glass with cachaça

A RATIONALE OF SUGAR SYRUP IN COCKTAILS

Todd Appel