I’ve always been enamored with stories. It draws me to meet people, and learn what their eyes have seen, or ears have heard over the years of their existence. My love for stories is what connects me to music, service, games, books, and more. I’ve written some short stories that my self-conscious demons never want to see the light of day again. Admittedly, I never imagined myself to write a blog. I actually hated journalism when I was in high school. I loved writing fiction, and enhancing that fiction with garnishes of fact and dashes of drama. So far, the strangest thing about a blog that I’ve run into is that often I am juggling two (or more) chapters at once. Wrapping myself around the overlap gets messy.
During our hiatus (before the Gin & Tonic post), Angie and I were pushing through a lot of extraneous life pressures, adamantly trying to keep our flame lit for the blog. While we visited our families in the Quad Cities over spring break, we took a day adventure across the river to Illinois. We were hopeful that getting into the same state as the Aviary would result in some significant bounty. We’ve decided that ‘bounty’ is the best term for finding liquor as of late, as the restrictions really have made this blog more of a treasure hunt than a cooking and beverage design course.
To our disappointment, we found nothing in our trip to Illinois. Not a single thing. Ten or twelve lame gas-station liquor stores later, we had spent the better part of the day driving as far as an hour across the border. The best selection we found was at a Hy-vee Wine & Spirits, which was still an absolute bust.
Luckily, we had a last resort in our repertoire: Angie’s coworker was visiting her sister in Chicago that same week. She doesn’t drink, but she and Angie enjoy long talks about about food, coffee, and even our misadventures for this cocktail project. With fingers crossed, Angie sent her wonderful coworker a text: “I was wondering… Would you be willing to do me a SUPER DUPER AWESOME favor?”
Without knowing what Angie was getting her into, she responded, “Yep!”
Angie felt guilty for putting her on the task, knowing that we had sent her friend on a scavenger hunt worthy of Indiana Jones. We had to cross our fingers and wait to hear what treasures she may find in the troves of the city.
To our amusement, her coworker sent a text the next day that read, “Oh, this is so fun, Ange!” By the end of that day, she had visited a plethora of specialty liquor stores inquiring about the liquor we needed, and managed to acquire three out of the five bottles we were looking for. As for the remaining two, she tasked her new liquor store connections, as well as her family and friends in the area, with the duty of keeping an eye out for the remaining products. This all from a woman that, may I remind you, doesn’t drink. Seriously, she is amazing.
Time once again got away from us as we wrapped up our Gin & Tonic project. At the end of March, we had one more chance to cross state borders and prod the expanse of liquor shelves in Minneapolis. Angie and I have been fortunate to build the connections we have so quickly. We were immediately recognized by everyone from our last trip, excited to find out what we were working on next, and we made some new connections along the way. We narrowed our scope down to three upcoming cocktails and successfully knocked all of our liquor hits off of the list.
Once we returned home, we decided which of the next three cocktails we should debut next. Our Big, Beautiful Book has a lot of diverse drinks with various flavors that I’ve never experienced. Angie and I have grown very fond of exploring our palettes and trying new things, but at the end of the day, I like to come home to my roots. When it comes to beverages, that means lemonade, chocolate milk, and apple juice. Ready to strike something closer to home, my mind was made up. Enter: Granny Smith.
Once we picked our poison (low-key Snow White joke… please laugh?), we started finalizing what we needed. In this case, the only major thing was a cylinder of ice. Angie opted to find some cylindrical ice molds when I started reading the directions and… well, that changed everything.
The directions for building the drink say, “Place one long hand-chipped ice cylinder into tall glass.” Angie was skeptical. Playing the Wicked Queen’s advocate, Angie pointed out that we don’t have proper ice chipping tools, skills, or funds to acquire the tools we would need (we checked online, proper tools are steep). Nevertheless, I was grinning ear-to-ear. I have some crappy knives, a mallet, YouTube, and courage. Let’s do this.
After watching a few professionals doing what could only literally be one of the coolest jobs on the friggin planet, I was ready to get my hands on some frosty dihydrogen monoxide. Conveniently, via Instagram, Angie happened to see a video by the Tipsy Bartender with a cheap, easy strategy to make beautiful, carve-ready clear ice. The method was simple. First, you clean one of those insulated coolers that everyone has (you know, the blue and white hunks of plastic that you leave in your trunk for some reason, like someone will spontaneously invite you to go tailgating or as if you need it to keep the milk cold when driving home from the store). Fill your cooler up with good ol’, regular tap water. No boiling needed, no distilled water of any sort, just tap water. Put it in the freezer for about 12 hours. The ice freezes from top to bottom, pushing the minerals and impurities down into the water below. You end up with this giant slab of ice resting on a small reservoir of water, surrounded by a much thinner case of ice due to the insulated container. You flip it upside down, and if you did it for the perfect amount of time, the unfrozen water will be on top, encased in a thin layer of ice, with a layer of crystal clear ice on bottom. Crack that reservoir of water over a sink, and voila. All that remains is a slab of crystal clear ice.
We followed the directions to the minute. It turns out our freezer isn’t as cold as their freezer. A little less than a fourth of the water froze, which was too thin to create a cylinder. Oh, and the thin layer of ice on the bottom didn’t exist, so when the ice came out on the counter top, an ocean current followed it. The kitchen and I were soaked, but fortunately, I prepared for this with towels on hand. After recovering, what remained was a beautiful sight. There were cool ice shards that had patterns like autumn leaves, and the slab, though a bit too thin for our purposes, was so incredibly clear. It was super duper cool. Excited to practice, I began chipping away with two knives that were collecting dust in a drawer, one big bread knife, and a mallet. We then used the ice we had salvaged to have some celebratory cocktails. The difference clear ice makes in aesthetic is incredibly mesmerizing.
We prepared the ice water again, and this time waited about 24 hours. I also bought some gardening gloves with thick, grippy rubber to help keep the ice from thawing in my hand while providing more grip. The result was much, much better. This ice layer was thicker (about one third of the container), and still so incredibly clear. The perimeter hadn’t fully frozen yet so the reservoir still wasn’t encased again, but we were better prepared and made no mess at all with the splash that followed. This round, I managed to make some ice cylinders, but they ended up pretty thin and small. They were viable for our project, but barely. I wasn’t satisfied.
Round three was a 36 hour chill. This was perfect. The lake was completely encased, and the water had frozen about half way down the cooler. The shell protecting the lake was surprisingly tough, and I ended up cracking the entire block of ice in half trying to break the lake open to dump into the sink. Oops. All was well though, because I chipped and shaved that ice to noobie perfection. We ended up with a few crystal clear, perfect specimens for our drink. It. Was. Awesome.
With the ice finished, we sliced up green apples. Hansen really enjoyed this part. Then, we mixed the apples with ascorbic acid and sugar, sealed it and blanched it, cooled it, and then juiced it. I was surprised by how quick and uneventful this blanching was. I’ve never blanched anything before, but the resulting juice was delicious and brilliantly green.
The rest was cake. Add the remaining ingredients, carbonate, garnish with Green Chartreuse soaked sage, and ignite the now-alcohol-soaked garnish. Our sage was pretty limp, but it did the job. I was so pleased with the interaction between the smell of the burning sage, the earthy core of the tequila and mezcal, and the vibrant, crisp, sparkling juice. This was an excellent drink.
Aside the ice carving, the process of making this drink wasn’t too eventful. I am so glad we opted to take the instructions literally and took a crack at ice carving. Now I want to hand carve every single ice cube I ever use at home. Speaking of which, as I finish this draft, my ice bucket is hitting its 36 hour mark. Final thought on the Granny Smith: yum.
