Tuesday, February 22, 2011

pistache fizz

Juice of 1/2 Lemon (1 oz)
1/2 tsp Sugar (1/2 oz Simple Syrup)
1 jigger Old Tom Gin (1 1/2 oz Ransom)
1 jigger Pistache Cream (1 oz Homemade, see below)

Shake with ice. Add 1 1/2 oz of soda water to a highball glass and strain contents of shaker over it. Top off with more soda water (1 1/2 oz).

One of the reasons I wanted a quick to assemble punch two Mondays ago was that I had already spent a bit of time preparing our second drink of the night. That drink was one of the recipes in George J. Kappeler's 1895 Modern American Drinks that had taunted me with its delicious sounding name, the Pistache Fizz. It seemed like a century older precursor to Angus Winchester's Peanut Malt Flip which is an addictive concoction. The Pistache Fizz, unlike the Peanut Malt Flip, had a problem -- where to acquire pistachio cream (or butter)? While I did spot it on the web with exorbitant shipping costs, I could not find it at any of the supermarkets or specialty stores around here. Therefore, I decided to make my own via a recipe I found on the Veggie Wedgie blog (see below) using unsalted and undyed pistachios. Making the nut butter was not too difficult, but I did end up underestimating the amount of nuts that would be required to make a pair of drinks. I figured that two thirds the amount of pistachio flavor would still be delightful and proceeded on with the show.
The Fizz lived up to its name by providing a glorious pistachio aroma that was punctuated by faint Ransom Old Tom Gin notes. The sip was crisp and lemony, and the pistachio flavor showed in the swallow along with the juniper and other spice elements of the gin. Overall, the Fizz made a great dessert drink and it was well worth the effort given the rich pistachio flavor. I wonder if the Fizz would have prospered from an egg white that might have kept the bigger bits of the nut butter in suspension better.
Pistachio Cream
• 500 gram Shelled Pistachios (4 oz volume unblended, 62.9 gram)
• 3 tbsp Almond Oil (5.6 mL or 1.1 tsp Coconut Oil)
• 1 pinch Salt (1/10 pinch)
Shell the pistachios and add to a food processor or blender. Process or blend until the nuts are fine crumbs. Add oil and salt; mix until it becomes a smooth but thick butter. My reduced weights and volumes yielded 2 oz volume of pistachio cream (was shooting for 3 oz though).
Adapted from the Veggie Wedgie blog

3 comments:

Ryan said...

Recently had some ideas with rosewater in cocktails, and the classic Persian combination of rosewater and pistachio came up several times. I was having some trouble wrapping my mind around how to best incorporate pistachios into a cocktail. This recipe with the pistachio cream certainly fit the bill exactly.

Tony Harion said...

The flavor combination sounds really interesting!
I wonder about the texture. Seems like it could benefit from a double straining or maybe the egg white as you mention.

frederic said...

With all of the carbonation, the fine bits of nuts did not seem all that unusual. Double straining might cause you to lose too much of the pistachio particles (although you could probably get them finer with something better than our mini food processor. A mortar and pestle or a good blender would have worked better).