INGREDIENTS:
- 200g Bourbon (Good, but not great. Buffalo Trace, Makers Mark, Bulleit etc)
- 40g coffee (I prefer something roasted for espresso here)
- 55g whole milk
- 1.5g bitter orange peel (dried)
- 1.5g Gentian root
- 0.5g fresh grated Vietnamese Cassia bark
- 0.5g fresh grated nutmeg
- 1 allspice berry (crushed)
- 0.5g minced Madagascan vanilla pod
- 60g Demerara sugar syrup (made from 2 parts sugar to 1 part water)
- Saline solution (20g salt to 80g water)
- Orange peel (optional to garnish)
EQUIPMENT REQUIRED:
- Cream whipper (I recommend ISI branded ones strongly)
- 3 x cream whipper charges
- A fine mesh sieve
- Pour over brewer and papers
- Spoons
TECHNIQUE:
- Grind the coffee close to espresso fine.
- Add the bourbon and the ground coffee to the cream whipper
- Swirl to combine
- Charge the whipper with one charge.
- Wait 4-5 minutes
- Rapidly release the pressure and strain with the sieve.
- In a separate container, first pour in the milk and then pour in the coffee infused bourbon while stirring constantly
- Leave for 5 minutes, or up to 2 hours in the fridge
- Strain the mixture through a sieve into a filter paper to clarify
- Return the clarified liquid to the clean cream whipper
- Add spices, botanicals and vanilla pod
- Charge, release, then charge again. Wait 5 minutes, up to 30 minutes.
- Release pressure and strain through a paper filter
- Add the sugar syrup
- Bottle
today we're gonna make a coffee Amaro
now an Amaro is kind of a very broad
category of sweet liquors defined by
their bitterness in fact tomorrow it's
the Italian word for bitterness
now you might know more famous Amaro's
like Campari or Ramat sati or Amara
Montenegro there are enormous numbers of
these things and they're often quite
regional now we're going to break all
the rules around making Amara as these
things often take weeks if not months to
infuse because you're going to take some
sort of booze and infuse into them
botanicals could be roots herbs could be
spices it doesn't really matter it's a
kind of regional thing here we're going
to show you a technique that you can get
it done start to finish in two 30
minutes if you want to though I will say
taking a little bit more time at certain
stages will benefit the end results so
once again if people doing things the
non-traditional way really upsets you
look away now so we're gonna break this
recipe into a few little stages and the
first stage is to get the coffee flavor
into the booze now today I'm going to be
using some whiskey some bourbon whiskey
now I like it because it's clean and
it's sweet and it's not terribly
expensive to have it tastes pretty good
now I would say don't spend too much
money on this because it's a waste of
money to really buy something lovely for
this just drink it but something like
maker's something like Buffalo Trace may
be good free of defect enjoyable to
drink but but don't get fancy we're
gonna start with 200 grams of whiskey
and there are going to be losses along
the way and at the end of all of this we
might end up with between 140 to 150
grams of finish tomorrow so just know
that going in what we're going to use
for our infusion is this which is a
cream whipper
now cream lip is obviously fine for
whipping cream but they are great for
infusing things with flavor so we're
gonna add whiskey to this and then we're
gonna grind 40 grams of coffee to match
the 200 grams of whiskey we're gonna
grind it pretty fine very close to
espresso something that would pull like
a disturbingly fast espresso shot but
still kind of very fine feeling
so it feels pretty close to espresso now
I'm gonna use this v60 here just as a
funnel because they didn't have a better
funnel tries and then do that 200 grams
now we're not going to shake this but we
are going to give it a good swirl
together to combine what we'll do is
then add a nitrous charge to it which is
not the the soda ones you want the cream
ripple ones lovely
so we've pressurized this now and
actually that gas is going to start
dissolving into the liquid below a
little bit and we're going to leave this
to infuse for about five minutes now
usually I don't like extractions done at
room temperature I don't like things
like a cold brew but we're not brewing
with water here we're brewing with
alcohol too it will extract certain
flavors that water can't and that's
really useful now you will get a little
bit more bitterness but we'll fix that
in the next step now a four minutes when
you release the pressure don't be gentle
be aggressive let it all out very
quickly that will be very disruptive to
the ground coffee and help with
extraction you can hear that fizzing so
now we're going to filter it and we're
just gonna pour it through a simple
sieve it won't do a perfect job but
don't worry about that you are going to
lose some of the whiskey to the ground
coffee there's nothing we can do about
it and let's just throw this away so
this liquid here well it tastes pretty
bad it's incredibly bitter but it's got
tons and tons and tons of flavor what
we're gonna do now is a lovely technique
called milk washing what we need for
that is about 55 grams of whole milk now
a warning now this technique is a little
bit disgusting to some people what's
going to happen is we're going to add
the alcohol to the milk and stir as we
do and it's going to cause the milk to
break and curdle and trapped in those
kind of curds
because that's what they are is gonna be
a lot of the stuff that we don't want
anymore we're going to do is stir this
and then add the coffee booze what we
can see is a curdling effect which is
disgusting but entirely wonderful in
terms of end result if we go in for that
30-minute Amaro you're gonna move
straight to the next step but the longer
you leave this now sort of settling out
the cleaner and clearer the end product
will be now I'm mostly interested in
this from a taste perspective not a
visuals perspective so I'm happy to
proceed straight away but at the very
least you're going to need to wash out
your creme whipper clean out your sieve
because you're gonna need those things
again in a second along with whatever
you strained into I'm going to use my
v6d carafe again okay so now we are
going to use paper so you're gonna put
this together to filter again but you're
gonna keep the sieve as well so we're
gonna do a two stage filtration of the
curds so to speak so what we've got in
here is this kind of awkward
coffee cheese that we don't want we
don't want this at all and then below it
now we've got the last few bits kind of
being filtered out now if you like me
have just no patience whatsoever you can
speed this up a little bit if you pinch
all of these filter pieces together
carefully so you'll see a lot at the top
you can twist that top very gently now
the harder you squeeze essentially the
less clear the liquid you're gonna get
is gonna be I'm looking with a little
squeeze if you squeeze too hard he would
just tear the felt of my friend that
would be bad and a mess need to have to
start over again what you don't want to
do but just gently twisting to apply
pressure does help speed up this
clarification process a little so we've
got our pretty clarified coffee liquid
now tons of coffee flavor in there tons
of bourbon flavor too but it has been
diluted slightly by that milk wash so
essentially we've added some water a
little bit of sugar actually some of the
lactose from the milk will be in here so
it's very slightly sweeter so what
now though is infuse more flavors in
there we'll use the same technique that
we did before so we may get a cream
whipper we're gonna add our liquid we've
got about a hundred and fifty grams here
to that we're gonna add a few very
classic flavors firstly we're gonna add
some dried bitter orange peel we're
gonna add a gram and a half of that
you'll recognize that smell that flavor
from things like Campari or other kind
of citrusy things next we're gonna add
some gentian root this is very common in
a lot of Amara's it adds a bit of
bitterness it's actually been proven to
help with dyspepsia indigestion and that
kind of stuff next we're gonna add just
one allspice berry that will crush
lovely in you go and next up is actually
something a little bit different this is
actually a Vietnamese cassia bark it's
not true cinnamon its cassia a relation
that smells real similar but this is
incredibly aromatic like incredibly
aromatic you could use a regular
cinnamon powder here but I'm going to
grate some of this about half a gram it
has that really lovely very pretty
aromatic quality a little of that almost
heat that you get from good cinnamon and
then also a little half gram of good
nutmeg just very pretty lovely next up
we're gonna add about half a gram of
minced Madagascan vanilla just so
everything is in here now let's put it
together and then we'll charge it once
give it a good shake and then discharge
it very aggressively and then charge it
again and wait for five minutes
one more charge and now just five more
minutes of waiting now while that
infuses you can get on and prep the last
few bits and pieces for this drink
you're going to need a Demerara syrup
now you can make this ahead of time it's
two parts light brown sugar to one part
water heat it up just until it dissolves
and then cool it down so we've got some
of that ready and a lovely kind of
caramel quality to the final drink works
really well with that coffee flavor
that's in there you're gonna need an
orange for garnish and potentially just
a little splash of clean water that's
kind of up to you you might want to just
dilute it down a little bit
just if you prefer to drink it quickly
or you don't like too much booze in your
Amaro I'm gonna add a very small amount
of water just to dilute it a little bit
down so you need some of that ready too
and then our friend say line solution
we've talked about this in the past
80/20 that's 20 salt 80 water very
useful for any kind of cocktail drink
now I know I've given you lots of data
lots of information this recipe has been
written up it's been written up on my
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thank you so much to Squarespace for
sponsoring this video so infusion done
and again a rapid discharge is always a
good thing of pressure and then we're
gonna do one final filtration through
paper but we're gonna lose a few more
grams of this sadly but we don't want
any pieces of spice floating around our
drink yeah give that little soft twist
and squeeze just to get maximum yield
out we just wanna get rid of those big
pieces of spices so to this we're gonna
add our sugar you can add 60 grams again
if you make this and don't like the
sweetness you can tweak it this is just
the kind of sweetness that I really
enjoy in an Amaro and I'm gonna add what
seems like a tiny amount of water but
just 25 grams and we're done and we can
bottle it now now there's a reason this
isn't a full bottle you want to make
what you're gonna use reasonably quickly
because this has coffee in it and I
think coffee degrades quite badly over
time I prefer to drink this fresh I'll
keep it in the fridge not the freezer it
will pretty much freeze solid in a very
cold freezer so it's not hugely boozy
it's putting about 20% alcohol at this
point so when it's time to drink it
get yourself a beautiful cube of ice
you're gonna then pour on your measure
of coffee Amaro and don't forget to add
a couple drops of saline to this give it
a gentle stir and then garnish wave just
a little piece of orange zest
oh it smells good that fresh orange head
is really nice but you can get a little
bit more of that coffee and that bitter
orange coming through that is I think a
really lovely drink the coffee's there
is playing a role but it's not the star
of the show and that's what I want you
can taste the Bourbon that comes through
really nicely you can taste the coffee
but you could give this to someone who
doesn't like coffee who does like
Amaro's I think they'd really like it
and you get that orange and that bitter
orange in there too and the gentian
provides a really distinct and pleasant
bitterness but in the middle there is
this wonderful aromatic component of
those spices that cassia the nutmeg the
allspice they just play beautifully
together now you could do this a whole
bunch of different ways you could adapt
this base technique with a bunch of
different spices if you'd like that a
bunch of different herbs if you like
that you could start with a different
raw material you could just do this with
vodka or something else if you wanted to
there's no rules outside of Italy anyway
so if you do this let me know what you
tried let me know if you made some
alterations you could drink this with
just like a splash of tonic and it would
be very good you could drink this just
neat and chilled and it would be very
good or like me on a fat cube of ice
with a little orange twist and you've
made a fantastic choice so thank you so
much for watching
