S & T
Oxymel provides a sweet and sour depth to a dry sherry and bitter tonic.
The first ingredient on the list below might be new to some people: forest tree honey. Isn’t honey made from the nectar of flowers?
Trees in place of flowers…kind of
While forest-type trees don’t make nectar, bees can find food on trees from another source. Trees produce sap, sometimes an abundance of sap that, we can say, overflows. Insects, particularly aphids, feed on the sap and in turn secrete a sweet liquid called honeydew. No, not related to honeydew the melon.
The resulting honey, in comparison to floral honey, is darker, less sweet, and with a stronger resinous or herbal flavour. The type of tree the honeydew was collected from influences the taste; pines, firs, and spruces are common types of trees, as well as acacia, plums, and poplar. Forest tree honey also has higher medicinal qualities, similar to manuka honey, with greater antibacterial and antioxidant properties.
An ancient elixir
Forest tree honey is used in the recipe to make oxymel, an old elixir that was forgotten but is making a comeback. At its most basic, oxymel - which literally means acid honey from the Greek - is a blend of vinegar and honey. Of course, various herbs, fruit, or other flavour elements can be added. Oxymel was originally used as a health tonic, and herbs or roots added to enhance various medicinal properties.
In this S&T cocktail, oxymel mixed with rose hip jam (or other jam of choice) provides a sweet and sour depth to the dry and light Lustau Manzanilla Sherry and the bitterness of Three Cents Dry Tonic.
This recipe is from the book The Cocktail Balance 2.0 by Stan Harcinik, available as a beautiful hardcover, with 44 more component recipes and 29 more cocktail recipes, or in ebook format, with the added bonus of all the recipes from the first The Cocktail Balance book.
HONEY & JAM OXYMEL
450 g Forest Tree Honey
350 g Utopia Raw Apple Vinegar
100 g Mineral Water
100 g Rose Hip Jam (other fruit jam can be used)
Put all ingredients together in a Thermomix and blend at 65°C for 15 minutes. Cool and filter through a cheesecloth or superbag. Bottle and store refrigerated.
S & T
25 ml Lustau Manzanilla Sherry
60 ml Three Cents Dry Tonic
5 ml Lustau Moscatel Emilín
5 ml Ramazzoti Amaro
10 ml Honey & Jam Oxymel
METHOD: Throwing
GLASSWARE: Patrik Illo
