Cocktail Confidential Vol. 2: Spicy Ginger Syrup + Dry January
No, this isn't about a fiery redhead.
"I just wanted to clean out the basement. I was trying to get rid of a lot of dead stock." -Wes Price, head bartender at Cock n’ Bull restaurant, New York, 1941, on why he invented the Moscow Mule by combining vodka and ginger beer.
The Moscow Mule is the one cocktail definitely synonymous with ginger. Vodka and ginger beer, two ingredients coming together seamlessly because vodka tastes like nothing. But did you know, Moscow Mules actually suck? Just kidding. Seriously though, did you know it was popularized through a marketing campaign by Smirnoff in the early 1940s to make vodka more relevant? The copper cup it comes in, too. It got its name from being in the buck family of cocktails, which is just a base spirit topped with ginger beer. Mezcal, gin, bourbon and even Fernet Branca are commonly made into bucks.
All of my personal bias against the Moscow Mule and its silly copper cup aside, ginger as an ingredient adds some serious pop to most classic drinks you may already be making at home. Commonly used in Asian, Middle Eastern and Caribbean food, it has an elegant spiciness to it that is grounded in a warm, earthy flavor. It pairs well with most spirits but especially rum and whiskey and is complemented by ingredients you’d see in the above mentioned cuisines - cardamom, lime leaf, peppers and tropical fruits to name a few.
Happy Dry January to those who celebrate. More on that below!
Let’s get it.
What you’ll need:
Ingredients:
1.5 pounds ginger, which should be about 1.5 cups after it’s chopped up
1.5 cups white sugar
1.5 cup water
.5 tsp cayenne pepper (feel free to omit for less spice or substitute in something you have on hand - red pepper flakes or aleppo would do the trick)
Note: This is an equal parts recipe. If you come home and you realize your ginger is just a cup after you chop it up, use a cup of water and a cup of sugar. Easy!
Tools:
Measuring cups
Knife + cutting board
Spoon
Blender, Magic Bullet or Vitamix if you’re fancy
Fine mesh strainer (or just a regular mesh strainer and some patience)
Spatula or something else to push a clumpy ginger mixture through a strainer
A couple of quart containers or some Tupperware
Making the syrup:
Active time: 30 minutes // Start to finish: 12 hours+
The first step, if you ask most bartenders, is to remove the skin from the ginger. While I completely agree with this and understand it from a cooking perspective, I actually don’t think there is much of a flavor difference when it comes to making a syrup. With that said, step one is to remove the skin of the ginger which can easily be done by gently scraping it with a spoon. Or don’t. I won’t be, honestly.
Using your knife on the cutting board, cut the ginger into teeny tiny pieces, ideally no bigger than a quarter inch wide, tall or long. As you chop it, measure out 1.5 cups and add it to a quart container or Tupperware, whatever you will use to store it. Add the cayenne pepper and the the sugar to the ginger, and mix it together thoroughly so the ginger is evenly coated. Store this in a cool, dry place and let it sit overnight. If you don’t have time or the patience to let it sit, that’s honestly fine, too. It will just have less punch.
The following day, you should notice that the ginger mixture appears watery and submerged. That’s flavor, baby! Put the water into your blender and add the ginger mixture on top of it, making sure you scrape all the sugar and small ginger bits out of the container. Blend it for about a minute until it is visibly smooth.
Note: Ginger is pretty mean to blenders, which is why it is chopped up into such small pieces and left to soften in the sugar. It may be beneficial to stir it up a bit when it is in the blender with the water before you let it rip.
Slowly pour the mixture into the fine mesh strainer over a quart container or Tupperware (this might be best done in a few rounds depending on the size of your strainer) and use the spatula to scrape the mixture off the sides of the strainer, allowing the liquid to pass through. When moving the mixture no longer is letting liquid through, use the spatula to press the mixture against the strainer to get any remaining juice out of it. Throw that mushy ginger lump from your strainer right in the compost!
You now have spicy ginger syrup at your disposal!
Now, let’s drink.
The Drinks
This is cool and all, but I’ve only ever made drinks a couple times: Moscow Mule
Oh, you thought because I ripped it apart in the introduction that I wouldn’t tell you how to make one? Nope. But, as I mentioned you can substitute pretty much anything - whiskey, gin, mezcal, etc. - in for vodka and it will be delicious.
2 oz vodka
1 oz spicy ginger syrup
.75 oz freshly squeezed lime juice
2 oz soda water
In a highball, add all ingredients and gently stir to combine. Add ice and garnish with a lime wedge or don’t.
Sipping Soundtrack: Adele - 21
I have a setup at home. Give me something I can impress with: Gimme the Light
Citrus, spice and everything nice. Yes, Aperol has other uses than spritzes in 2019, and this daiquiri is a good example.
1.5 oz aged rum (whiskey or tequila will work here, too)
.5 oz Aperol
.75 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
.5 oz spicy ginger syrup
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake hard for 15 seconds and strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a ~*fancy*~ lime wheel.
Sipping Soundtrack: Horace Andy - Skylarking
Sound the cool guy alarm, because I have a full home bar: Midnite Vultures
It’s whiskey sour time! This drink will taste a touch tart with spiced stone fruit notes shining through to compliment the oak from the bourbon and warming spices of the bitters.
1.5 oz bourbon (rye, rum or mezcal would work, too)
.75 oz spicy ginger syrup
.75 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
Teaspoon peach liqueur
1 dash Angostura bitters
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake hard for 15 seconds and strain over fresh ice in a double old fashioned glass. Garnish with a lemon wedge if you have one.
Sipping Soundtrack: Beck - Midnite Vultures
I don’t feel like drinking today: Spicy Ginger Brew
Ginger beer is delicious and this one is no exception. Think of it as a spicy ginger sparkling limeade but you don’t have to say all that.
1.5 oz spicy ginger syrup
1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
3 oz soda water
In a highball, add all ingredients and gently stir to combine. Add ice and garnish with a lime wedge or don’t.
Sipping Soundtrack: Handsome Boy Modeling School - So…How’s Your Girl?
So You’re Participating In Dry January - Let’s Talk About It
I’m gonna come clean here. I don’t advertise this aspect of my life very much, but I don’t really drink. Sober bartender? Counterintuitive, to say the least. Over the past 2 years, I drank a few glasses of wine when I went on vacation to Portugal and Spain with the LOML, and I snuck a PBR at a Wolfmother concert with two dear friends, one of whom was moving away shortly after. This all started on January 1, 2022.
I’m actually not a sobriety advocate, nor do I consider myself ‘sober’. I make my living off people eating food and drinking alcohol. I, as well as most front of house restaurant workers, take a huge pay cut every January. You can do the math there. But I do think steering clear of alcohol in most situations is beneficial for my physical and mental health, and I will always be open to talking to other people about it.
But enough about me. Let’s talk about going booze-free for a month!
Some history and stats
Dry January is a really fascinating cultural wave that officially started not so long ago in 2014 as an initiative by the Alcohol Change UK to promote a month of sobriety that has other implied benefits such as lower costs of a night out, weight loss and better mental health. Throughout Europe, most other countries’ health services departments bought into the program and have promoted it, while in the United States there isn’t any sort of official government support behind it. If you ever think the US government is too big… nope.
Although there isn’t an official government effort in the US to promote Dry January, there has been a huge boost in participation in recent years. I am sure a common feeling amongst readers here is, that during the months of shutdown at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, people were drinking a lot more and more regularly than they did in their day-to-day lives a few months prior.
With that in mind, participation in Dry January in the United States has skyrocketed, with polls showing that an astonishing 35% of adults abstained from drinking during January of 2022. Americans love a health challenge. This number should be very encouraging anyone participating. If you have a group 20 friends including yourself, statistically 6 of them are participating alongside you.
NA drinks are better than ever
Steering clear of alcohol, in my opinion, has been made a bit easier in the past few years. Bars and restaurants have made changes to their beverage programs to accommodate sober and sober-curious people and just folks who want to take the night off. Major beverage and industry focused publications such as Imbibe have incorporated non-alcoholic beverage sections in to their websites as well as highlighting the recent rise of NA spirits. There has never been a better time to access resources on a longterm, alcohol-free lifestyle, slurp down some incredible mocktails at restaurants or mix non-alcoholic negronis at home than right now.
There has also been a rise in NA drink brands that are essentially natural, low sugar sodas leaning into far more interesting, natural and specific flavors than Diet Coke or Sprite. Ghia is producing non-alcoholic apertifs that are a touch bitter, refreshing and inspired by the Mediterranean. Culture Pop is focused on making probiotic sodas using organic fruit juices and spices. Polar Seltzer, arguably the GOAT of soda water, has a huge range of core and seasonal flavors available at any department store. If you want to stick with beer, Athletic Brewing brews a wide variety of beer styles and is considered by many in the service industry to be the standard for NA beers.
It’s not just about the 31 days in January
Interestingly enough, going booze-free for one month has been shown in recent studies to have long-lasting effects that extend far beyond January 31. I’m not smart enough to understand this study done by the NIH, but the summaries are pretty cool. It is kind of about how far too many Brits just drink themselves to death. Bit grim, mate.
Here is the conclusion from the article, which is pretty phenomenal: These findings demonstrate that abstinence from alcohol in moderate–heavy drinkers improves insulin resistance, weight, BP and cancer-related growth factors. These data support an independent association of alcohol consumption with cancer risk, and suggest an increased risk of metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease.
Some advice if you are unsure of yourself
Here are my personal tips for having a successful Dry January:
Do it with a friend - Call me a communist or a socialist or whatever you want, but goals are easier to achieve with a group effort. If you express your intentions to the homies, they might give you some shit up front, but ultimately you’ll have their support.
Bring your own drinks - If you’re going to a party or dinner at a friends house, carry in some seltzer waters or Athletic Brewing beer. While your friends may be really cool and accommodating, it’s even cooler to just do it yourself.
If you have a drink, it doesn’t matter - Just start over the next day! Maybe you go one day into February because you drank one day in January. Like I said above, I had a few glass of wine in Spain as I deleted tapas in Than ThebaThtian. Feel no guilt.
Smoke some weed - I don’t really have anything to add to this.
Check in with yourself - Dry January is popular for a long list reasons, but a big part of it is the recognition that alcohol plays a major part is most adults’ lives. People create habits around it. After work cocktails, brunch mimosas, beers in the park on a sunny day. My point here is, if you are feeling really good after 30 days and want to keep your sober streak while everyone else starts drinking again, you absolutely should.
Find out what interests you - As mentioned above, drinking takes up a fair amount of time in most adults’ lives, so diving into a hobby or an interest can help answer the question of “well now what should I do?” Even simple things like reorganizing your apartment while listening to a podcast, extending the length of your evening walk with your dog or shooting some hoops for the first time since high school on the weekend are low impact, easy and enjoyable to most. I found it was a good time to form better habits in your daily life.
Lastly…
Here is my last, and probably most controversial take on Dry January. It’s a really good time for self-reflection and simply asking “am I better off with or without alcohol in my life?” The answer will fall on somewhere on a spectrum, and it is important to be honest with yourself with the long-term effects of consistent over-consumption of alcohol in mind. In my personal life, I have seen a growing number of people go through Dry January and continue into the following months, some even giving up alcohol for good. This doesn’t make me happy because someone I know if going to be sober at a party with me. It makes me happy because I see my friends making a choice to better themselves in a way that goes against the grain of American society. It’s hard, but it’s getting easier.
The social stigma of being sober is lessening as people have more and more information about the negative impact that booze will have on you over extended period of consumption. Even if it aren’t interested in making the decision to stay dry for a long time, maybe you can consider if you have drinking habits that you find unacceptable for your sustained health.
When you finish your 31 day journey away from alcohol on February 1, it feels natural to think “wow, I accomplished this goal and I feel incredible. I deserve that drink I’ve been looking forward to!” Don’t be afraid to ask “wow, I accomplished this goal and I feel incredible. Should I continue these habits to feel this way for longer?”
As we grow older, the way we treat ourselves changes - we exercise more with lesser effect, we eat the same amount of food but it somehow grabs a hold of our love handles and sticks around, our jobs become more stressful. We make decisions to stay fit, eat healthy and find a work life balance.
Maybe Dry January is the right time to look at our drinking habits through the same lens.
FAQs
You’re talking a lot about cocktail tins and .75 oz and other stuff I’m unfamiliar with. Can you elaborate?
So in order to make these cocktails, you’ll need some basic bar tools. You can usually purchase these in a set with a cocktail shaker, a jigger (measuring tool), a barspoon for mixing, a Hawthorne strainer and a mixing glass. Jiggers typically have a 2 oz side with a 1.5 oz line, and a 1 oz side with a .5 and .75 line.
I don’t have a bunch of these cocktail tools, but this seems interesting. Where can I get all this stuff you’re talking about?
I personally would recommend checking out Cocktail Kingdom’s complete sets. They’re very high quality and beautifully crafted.
You’re talking a lot about glassware. What’s the difference between all of them and what would typically be served in them?
There are three primary cocktail glasses that every home bar should have - highball, double old fashioned and coupe.
Highball - Ever order a vodka soda close it? Jamo ginger? That is a highball glass! Tall and thin, usually 12 - 16 oz in volume.
Double Old Fashioned - The style is in the name! Old Fashioned! Other names include ‘rocks glass’, ‘tumbler’ or ‘low ball’. They’re short and sturdy and usually 10 - 12 oz in volume.
Coupe - This is a stemmed glass that has a broad, shallow bowl to sip your concoctions out of. Think martini glass but you don’t have to be scared of the physics behind drinking out of it. 6 - 8 oz in volume is the typical size.
My cocktail doesn’t seem ‘balanced’. What should I do?
Bartenders love getting into discussions about the ideal build for a classic gin gimlet or whiskey sour. Some prefer a 2:1:1 build which would mean 1.5 oz base spirit, .75 oz citrus juice and .75 oz bar syrup, while others prefer a 2:.5:.5, which would mean 2 oz base spirit, .5 oz citrus juice and .5 bar syrup. Some might even go 2:.75:.5. But the point is, people have different preferences and you can feel free to adjust. If you want more of an acidic pop, add more lemon or lime juice. If you want it a touch sweeter, add more bar syrup.
Why is there a ‘Tip Your Bartender’ button on here? Can’t you just make it a paid subscription?
Yes, technically I could. But unfortunately the minimum charge is $5 a month, and quite frankly I find that too steep. I’d like this to be accessible to everyone who wants to mix drinks at home, so I thought a ‘pay what you’d like’ system makes the most sense for this newsletter. Tips are absolutely not necessary but always appreciated!