PJ's Award-winning "The Catalyst" Cocktail Recipe

When coming up with a cocktail for Roots’ annual “Show Us Your Roots” cocktail competition, I asked myself: what are my roots? Where does my love for creation of cocktails come from, and how was it nurtured? Looking at my Mum, a chemistry teacher and lab technician, I realised that the biggest thing that influences my funky creations is chemistry. 

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To unlock the full potential of each individual ingredient, and use it in its entirety to remove as much waste as possible, has always been my goal with cocktail creation. To win Roots’ competition, I used enzymes to unlock phenolics, conflicting ions to influence cross-modal perception, and broke down larger carbohydrates into simpler sugars for a complete change in flavour, putting science at the forefront. This is the Catalyst! 

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The Catalyst

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Ingredients:

• 30mL Roots Norwester Navy Strength Gin
• 20mL Blueberry Manzanilla
• 20mL Citrus Stock
• 20mL Kumara Wort
• 2 Dash Marmite Saline

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Method:

Shake and strain into chilled coupe glass. 

Serve with reused blueberry kumara mochi. 

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Blueberry Manzanilla

The drink was a riff on a Baltic Gimlet, which is a gimlet with blueberries and salt. Manzanilla is known for its salinity due to being grown and fermented near the coast of Spain, and Roots Norwester contains Akaroa kelp, which adds to the seaspray flavour profile. 

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Ingredients:

• 200mL Manzanilla Sherry
• 100g Frozen Blueberries

Method:

• Add sherry and blueberries to a ziploc bag and sous vide at 50 degrees for one hour. Alternatively, muddle the blueberries slightly and leave at room temperature for 24 hours. 
• Strain through coffee filter

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Citrus Stock 

Sustainability is a massive focus for me in my bartending, so I wanted to use every part of a lemon. I used the juice, of course, the peels were made into an oleo saccharum by extracting the oils into sugar, and I broke down the pectin-rich husk into a stock with enzymes. 

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Method:

• Peel the lemon(s) and weigh the peels
• Add an equal weight of sugar to the peels, muddle gently, and leave together until the sugar dissolves into a thick syrup
• Juice the lemon, and keep the juice to the side
• Weigh the husk, and then chop the husk into small pieces
• Add the husk pieces with an equal amount of water to a blender or food processor and blitz until smooth
• Add half a teaspoon of pectinase enzyme to the pulp slurry. Note, half a teaspoon of pectinase will work for up to one kilogram of husk. 
• Sous vide the pulp slurry with the enzyme at 50 degrees for 3 hours, before leaving at room temperature for one hour. Alternatively, stir the enzyme into the pulp slurry and leave for two days
• Strain, and add 5% of the volume of the stock in citric acid (e.g. 100mL stock = 5g citric acid)
• Combine stock, oleo and juice and mix thoroughly

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Kumara Wort

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To make alcohol from a starch source, you must break down the starches into fermentable sugars using enzymes, like amylase and glucosidase. When purple kumara is heat treated, it releases gallic acid and vanillin, which are two of the main flavour compounds of maple syrup, so I ended up with a bright purple, earthy maple syrup! 

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Method:

• Wash, weigh and chop kumara into 1-2cm pieces. Leave the skins on!
• Boil the kumara until fork tender
• Strain, but reserve the water from the kumara, and mash the kumara as much as possible
• Add an equal weight of reserved water back to the kumara (use the weight from earlier)
• Add half a teaspoon of amylase, and half a teaspoon of glucosidase to the kumara slurry and mix thoroughly
• Sous vide at 65 degrees for three hours, and then let sit at room temperature for one hour. Alternatively, add everything to a heatproof dish and put in an oven while it is cooling down, and leave at room temperature for two-three days
• Strain thoroughly and add sugar to taste. I added about half the weight of the wort in sugar! 

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Marmite Saline

Saline solution is used in cocktails to reduce bitterness, as the brain cancels out salinity and bitterness to focus more on flavours like sweetness. 

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Method:

• Add 30g Marmite to 75mL of boiling water and stir thoroughly to dissolve completely

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