Gochujang Banana

• 500 grams Perfect Puree Banana
• 200 grams cane sugar
• 20 grams gochujang paste
• 1 gram Gum Arabic

• Digital Scale
• Vitamix/Blender

For fruit puree syrups a 1:1 ratio is great for both texture and flavor. Perfect Puree will tell you the Brix of the puree you are using. Next go to The Universal Syrup Calculator and enter what you need. The gochujang paste I went with was from Chung Jung One O’Food, but any brand should do. This recipe is an easy one: weigh out all your ingredients except the Gum Arabic and blend in a high speed blender. Blend until all the sugar is incorporated and it has a vibrant red hue. Turn up the speed on the blender to create a vortex and toss the Gum Arabic into the vortex and blend a little longer until the puree ingredients are fully incorporated and the texture is velvety. The level of spiciness can vary by changing the amount of gochujang paste. I would change in increments of +/-5 grams until you hit that spot of your liking.

This particular spicy, savory sweet banana syrup was made for a Spring/Summer menu, but can work all year round. This time around for R&D we were assigned cocktail styles and ingredients, which was a new approach to our process. This made things feel more “streamlined” and fit in well with the corporate feel that had been looming about for years. The prompt I was given was “cool vegan creamy thing” in the rich & comforting (dessert/after dinner) section of our menu. I previously made some yogurt drink for this spot which was well received and I wanted a similar texture but I wanted to use something more interesting. Queue up banana puree. The Devil Crybaby was the cocktail this syrup was used in and was a nod to Korean cuisine. Korean cuisine had been exploding, especially in the East Village, and I wanted to make a cocktail that would represent what was happening locally in the restaurant world.