1 oz Tapatio 110
marc rizzuto Spring/summer 2024
0.75 oz Sotol La Higuera Leiophyllum
0.25 oz Song Cai May Amaro
0.5 oz Gochujang Banana Syrup
0.25 oz Lime Juice
Method: Shake/Strain
Glassware: Nick & Nora
Garnish: None
Korean cuisine was popping up and producing some of the tastiest dishes in the East Village. I was tasked with creating a “cool creamy vegan drink” for our Rich & Comforting section. I wanted to use banana puree for its texture and thats all I knew off rip. The surrounding neighborhood has influenced tons of my flavor combinations: Duals spice shop, Physical Graffitea, Setsugekka, and the emerging Korean restaurants (Nudibranch and ARIARI). Harmony and balance are integral parts of Korean cuisine. Most of the time the focus is on the visual balance: white, black, green, red and yellow. Spicy, sweet, bitter, vegetal/earthy, and sour were the five elements of flavor I was trying to match up to colors to make this cocktail have some complexity. I had yellow and sweet all sorted out with banana and had to fill the missing spots.
Song Cai May Amaro was a new Amaro from Vietnam that I was itching to use. Bracingly bitter with tons of umami, smoke, poppy and pine (black and bitter). Red and spicy was pretty obvious: gochujang. White would come in two parts: Tequila and Sotol. Splitting more expensive agave/agave adjacent products with a less expensive Tequila was common practice behind the bar to cut costs. Sometimes it would also lengthen flavor to stronger flavored distillates, or add texture to drier ones or dry out oily ones. This Sotol varietal (Leiophyllum) from La Higuera tasted akin to Martinique Rhum, banana and grass with nice salinity, it is super savory. I was told to split it with Tequila because it needed more texture, sure thing. Lets ramp up the proof on this sucker with Tapatio 110, my go to for peppery vegetal notes and slick minerality. This combo gave me the white and vegetal/earthy elements I was looking for. At this point I needed green and sour: hello lime juice.
Time to make a gochujang banana syrup, or at least thats the way I enjoyed this cocktail most. It created a bright red hue that immediately draws your attention. It was forced upon me to make a gochujang tincture and banana puree syrup. Splitting one ingredient into two was common practice, but did not always make sense. In this case, the gochujang was lost dramatically when turned into a tincture. Either way, the drink works if you choose to soak gochujang in a high proof distillate and dash it in the drink, or if you choose to follow the recipe for gochujang banana syrup by clicking it above.
Balancing this cocktail took time. The level of spiciness was changed time and time again by creating syrups with different amounts of gochujang. Some were too polarizing and others were just boring. Once this balance was figured out I could start to apply it to the cocktail. The two ounces split into three distillates for the base bounced around a bit. The Song Cai Amaro is super dry and bitter, a bit abrasive, so this was going to stay at a light quarter ounce. The balancing of the Sotol and Tequila would prove to be a little tricky. The Tequila was used to lengthen the flavor of the Sotol without overpowering it. They eventually became a harmonious duo. The Sotol has a bit of sour notes on the palate, which presented a problem with the balancing of acid. This measurement fluctuated based on how much lime juice and gochujang banana syrup were added. The final cocktail recipe used at the bar was with a less expensive Reposado Tequila form a brand that Death & Co. always keeps in their pocket for lowering cost, the gochujang was removed from the banana and turned into a tincture that made the drink stay savory but lost all of its heat. The version published above, like I said earlier is preferred, but it can be reworked like any cocktail.
To make this cocktail add all of your ingredients to a shaker with ice and shake hard until the drink is properly chilled. Double strain this into a nick & nora or any stemmed cocktail glass and enjoy.
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