MxMo Submission: Manhattan with Fig Bitters

The Mixology Monday theme this month is "Made From Scratch" -- Doug over at Pegu Blog is inviting participants to come up with drinks which include ingredients that they've made themselves.

And I have a confession to make:  Due to poor planning and MxMo's tendency to sneak up on me, I'm currently several hundred miles away from my home computer, which of course contains recipes and further details of the ingredients in question for this month's submission.  I hope to update this entry and add some specificity (and some pictures.)

A post of Chuck's from a few months back got me thinking about fig-infused bourbon and how good that'd be.  So I got some fresh Mission figs and some dried ones, cut them up, and stated infusing a bottle of Bulleit.  But I had lots of figs, and suddenly the idea of fig bitters came to mind.  After doing a bit of research (hat tip especially to Jamie Boudreau's theory of making separate bittering and flavoring agents, and combining them to taste), and using Chuck's Taggart Bitters No. 3 as a starting point for my shopping list, I headed down to my local weird-spice supply store.  I got gentian, mace blades, allspice berries, wormwood bark, cloves, cardamom, and nutmeg, toasted them all briefly in a skillet, crushed them with a mortar and pestle, and then steeped them for ten days or so in some 140-proof poteen that a generous friend brought me from Europe.  I also infused a bunch more of the fresh and dried figs in some Rittenhouse Bottled in Bond 100-proof rye, also for about ten days.

When I tasted the bitter blend, it was -- no joke -- the bitterest thing I've ever tasted.  One drop was enough to make my salivary glands kick into overdrive and snap my head back with the sheer bitterness of it all.  The fig-infused rye was mellow and sweet, and the most difficult thing there was successfully filtering out all the tiny fig seeds.  I blended several tablespoons of the bitter blend with the fig-infused rye, and I was set.  All that was left was to heat some more figs in some water, reduce that water down to concentrate the flavor some more, and add that water to the bitters to lower the alcohol level a bit.

I think the fig bitters came out fairly well, although the flavor isn't quite as robust as I'd hoped it'd be.  There's an initial burst of figgy sweetness up front, and then the spicy bitterness hits your palate.

However, a couple good-sized dashes are a nice addition to a cocktail, and I especially like the homemade fig bitters in a Manhattan.  Lately I've been making them like this:

Figgy Manhattan

• 1 oz. rye whiskey
• 1 oz. fig-infused bourbon
• 1 oz. sweet vermouth (I like Vya)
• several healthy dashes fig bitters.

Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a homemade Maraschino cherry.

(Want to try a sample of the fig bitters?  Drop me a line.)

Comments

[tizzie]

When I have to filter something that fine, I either line a funnel with a few layers of cheesecloth, or use a coffee filter.

[Vidiot]

Yeah, I first did the cheesecloth method -- a funnel's a good idea; I just wrapped the top of a jar with cheesecloth and poured through it -- and then tried the coffee filters. The filters take FOREVER, though. (Some bitters geeks use Buchner funnels, but that's a little more involved than I want to get right now.)

[Dood]

When it comes to filtering, Jamie Boudreau actually recommends the use of something like a Brita Filter. I have yet to make my own bitters so I claim that this has worked for me, but Jamie's supposed to be some sort of expert or something. ;-)

[Vidiot]

I've seen his recommendations for the Brita, but I can't help but wonder:the stuff changes the flavor of water and smooths out cheap vodka's burn; why wouldn't this appreciably change the flavor of the bitters or whatever you're filtering through it?

[Dood]

At Tales this past year Jamie brought up a good point about potentially losing flavor:

Jack Daniels runs its whiskey through something like a quarter mile of charcoal filter before bottling.

It may strip some of the harsher elements out, but the flavor should remain. I'm going to experiment with this with my next batch of bitters since I've acquired an extra Brita pitcher.

[Vidiot]

Let me know how it works out!