Ginger Julep - Art of the Drink 2

Anthony Caporale: Welcome to the Art of The Drink Video Podcast. My name is Anthony Caporale, with us again this week is Ashley, hi Ashley! Ashley: Hi, good to be here. Anthony Caporale: And we’re going to be making in honor of the Kentucky Derby, a ginger infused mint julep. Ashley: Yum. Anthony Caporale: Yeah. Tastes a lot like a regular mint julep, but it’s got that bite of ginger and ginger and mint together are just fantastic. If you’ve never had it, try this drink, it's wonderful. So very similar to a regular mint julep, we’re going to start with our rocks glass, and we’re going to add about five or six decent size mint leaves, and again, the technique that we’re going to use for this drink is, muddling, which we use a pestle to muddle. And muddling is just combining, usually fruits, sometimes leaves, in the bottom of the glass with little bit of simple syrup, and this is our secret ingredient here. This is ginger-infused simple syrup, put about a half an ounce in there. Simple syrup is just basically sugar and water, that’s all it is, and I use a one to one recipe. So if I’m going to use a cup of sugar, granulated sugar, I'll mix that with a cup of hot water, right from the tap, hot as I can get. I'll put in the blender, burn it up for about a minute. To make the ginger infused simple syrup, what I'll do is, add some fresh ginger to that. Let that whole thing cool down in the fridge overnight, and then strain it, and use that right in my drink. So ginger-infused simple syrup and mint leaves, and I muddle this in the bottom of the glass. And muddling, is just crushing the leaves in the bottom of a glass, so that release all the oils and flavor in the leaves. I release that into the simple syrup, and that creates a base for the drink, right? Once that’s all crushed up nicely, I add a big of scoop of ice, and the really most important ingredient for this drink, good Kentucky Bourbon. An ounce-and-a-half of good Kentucky Bourbon, and to finish it, soda water right up to the top. We never serve an unmixed drink, so I’m going to roll it into the mixing tin, to make sure that all those flavors are combined, the way they are supposed to be. Swirl it once, and I garnish it with a sprig of mint and a cocktail stirrer. Ginger infused mint julep, want to give it a shot? Ashley: Looks great, absolutely. Anthony Caporale: Alright, come on over. Ashley: Allright: Alright. Some mint leaves. Anthony Caporale: Good, again five or six nice sized mint leaves. Ashley: Simple syrup. Anthony Caporale: Ginger-infused. Ashley: And really. Anthony Caporale: And I love Ashley’s muddling technique because it's textbook. She’s pushing and twisting, and that’s really how you break up the leaves in the bottom of the glass, and again the idea is to release all those oils into the simple syrup and create that base for the drink. That looks terrific. Ashley: Ice -- Anthony Caporale: Ice -- ice all the way to the top. Ashley: Favorite ingredient. Anthony Caporale: Yeah, ounce-and-a-half. You also notice, Ashley doesn't measure. She does it what we call free pouring, in her head she’s counting, and she knows that each count is going to result in a certain amount of liquid in the glass, soda to the top, and a good roll, nice swirl. Ah, even the sound makes you want to drink it, sprig of mint and a cocktail stirrer. Ashley: It’s done. Anthony Caporale: You’re an artist. Ashley: Thanks. Yummy. Anthony Caporale: Ginger-infused. For more information on the Art of Making Drinks, be sure to visit us on the Web, at artofthedrink.com.