Pre-Batched Cocktail Hack: Easy vs Pro Techniques For Amazing Drinks

This video is sponsored by Clarisse. What's up my friends? Welcome back to the channel. Today we're making some batch cocktails because I want to show you a little hack that will take your batch drinks to the next level. It can be extremely simple or a bit intricate but either way the result is fantastic and it's something you'll want to start adding to all of your batch drinks. So if you guys are ready let's go make some batch cocktails. Let's go! When we make batch cocktails the whole point is always to keep things simple at the time of service. The whole work is done ahead of time so when it's time to serve it's as easy as pouring a beer. There's always a couple of rules to follow in order to succeed like using acidic ingredients that will not oxidize or clarifying your ingredients when you're working with fizzy drinks but one thing that's often overlooked is the added dilution. With batch cocktails we always pre-dilute the drink so that way once chilled we don't have to stir or shake the cocktail. Everything is already in the bottle but plain water can be boring sometimes. So what if we use the dilution as an opportunity to create an extra layer of complexity to our recipe? Well that's exactly what we're going to be doing today. Another rule that's crucial when we're talking about batch cocktails is ice. Having quality ice and enough of it. And in the spirit of keeping things simple having a machine that does all the work for you is a game changer. These recipes often require a lot of prep so with a clear ice machine like Clarisse you can get professional quality clear ice at home with zero effort and focus entirely on developing your recipes. You guys know it by now I love my Clarisse machine and I've been using it for more than two years. It's actually the third year that we've been partnering together and it's now my Clarisse machine that produces all my ice need and I actually need quite a lot of ice. I make cocktails almost every day and I make more than one cocktail a day because it's my work and I don't even push the production to its limit and I never run out. It's the only countertop ice machine that uses the reverse directional freezing method to make clear ice which is the same method used in those big industrial machines that make like those huge blocks for restaurants or for ice cultures and it's hands down the best way to make clear ice. It couldn't be easier to use your Clarisse machine all you have to do is to fill up the tray, place the inserts, put the tray in the machine, press start and wait. Once ready you take the tray out, remove the excess water, wait a couple of minutes so it's easier to unmold, push to release the blocks and that's it. You just made yourself perfect and I mean perfect two by two inches ice cubes without any of the hassle. I personally use always the flagship Clarisse which makes four cubes at a time and it takes about 12 hours to run a cycle for a total of eight cubes a day or 56 per week which is plenty enough for most of the people sometimes even too much and if it's your case you can choose the Clarisse mini which makes two cubes at a time the exact same size of cubes and it's a little bit faster to run a cycle so you can run sometimes up to three cycles a day for six cubes a day so a total of 42 cubes per week if you push it to its limit which is also plenty enough for the majority and the price tag is a little bit lower the four cuber is $5.99 whereas the mini is $2.99. The mini is also quite smaller so if you are limited in counter space it can be a really good choice. There's also one really cool feature with the flagship that the mini can do and it's the fact that you can buy an extra tray which instead of making four cubes makes three long highball ice spheres which is really convenient so if you want to upgrade your home bar I couldn't recommend it more and if you use my promo code TOTR10 you'll get 10% off sitewide including on that beautiful ice press which makes the perfect little ice spheres which also comes with two different designer plates on each end so you can engrave beautiful designs on your ice cubes so all the links are going to be in the show notes and pinned comment below and obviously all the ice you will see in this video is from my Clarisse machine so thank you very much Clarisse for sponsoring this episode. Alright so back to the recipes today I want to show you how to elevate your batch cocktails by using flavored water instead of plain water to dilute your drinks but also to create an extra layer of complexity to your recipe. Of course you can go crazy with flavor combinations but today to show you how big of an impact it can have on one drink I'm gonna keep it classic. I'm gonna make a classical fashion diluted with coconut water and a classic Negroni diluted with celery water. Now if you want to go crazy with some other flavor combinations I'm going to share some of my favorite ingredients to use for this technique on Patreon so the link for that is also going to be in the show notes. Alright so for the first recipe the old-fashioned with coconut water this one couldn't be easier it's extremely straightforward there's no mise en place all you have to do is to put the ingredients together. Today we're going to make six servings but feel free to scale this up to as many as you want. So first in a large container we're going to add 12 ounces or 360 mils of your favorite rye, one ounce or 30 mils of simple syrup, nine mils of angostura bitters and for you my American friends it's a scant two teaspoons. Now for the dilution we're going to go for 25% which in this case is going to be 100 mils or three and a third ounces. Then you simply bottle it up the way you want. Today I'm using individual bottles so that way I don't even have to measure for service and then you just have to place this in the fridge until cold. Now for the service because this one was so easy to make I'm going to take the presentation one step further. So we're going to take one tempered claris ice cube we're going to dip it in melted coconut oil and then on shredded toasted coconut chips and then we simply have to pour our cold coconut old-fashioned into our glass. Cheers! Wow the coconut is very well present the cocktail is super round and mellow there's a beautiful tropical vibe to the old-fashioned but it's not overpowering. Now if you want to make more of this you absolutely can you just have to pair this with other techniques like flavored syrups or infused spirits then you're going to develop something completely crazy and probably really cool. But today I just wanted to show you that by simply using coconut water for your dilution will change your cocktail completely. So this was the easiest way to use this technique now let's take it up a notch. So making this with coconut water was pretty easy you buy it like that there is no prep and the result is pretty fantastic but where this technique really shines is when you start creating your own water because there's a lot of ingredients in your fridge that contain a lot of water and very little sugar so if you are able to transform those ingredients into water you open up a whole new world of possibilities. I'm talking about sugar snappies, red bell pepper, tomatoes for example just to name a few and like I said I'm going to write you my favorite on Patreon. The one that we're going to make today to show you how the technique works is celery water because this is one of my favorite. The celery water is super intense in flavor and when paired with the right ingredients it is fantastic. Now you will see this technique takes a little bit more time but it's definitely worth it and since we're making pre-batch drinks it doesn't really matter because we do the work ahead of time pre-batch our drinks store them in the fridge and they're going to stay good for a couple of weeks if not months so like I said definitely worth it. So to make the celery water start by chopping some fresh celery add that to a blender with 0.1% by weight of ascorbic acid and a small cube of ice which will help for oxidation then you blend until smooth fine strain through a nutmeal bag squeezing as much liquid as possible then filter your celery juice through a coffee filter measure the juice and add 0.5% by weight of pectinex then place in the fridge and wait until you see a clear break between the liquid and the solids next you filter this again through a coffee filter trying to pour just the clearer part let it run all the way through then pour the solids in the filter they will settle at the bottom so then you can pour gently the cloudy part over the solids trying not to disturb them too much this will act as a natural filtration bed and the result will be a pure crystal clear celery water then for the Negroni again for six servings we're going to start with 180 mils or six ounces of dry gin same amount of Campari again same amount of sweet vermouth and finally 160 mils or four and a third of an ounce of celery water mix briefly to combine and again bottle it up before placing in the fridge when it's cold just pour your Negroni over a beautiful clarisse clear cube and garnish with a celery ribbon cheers that's amazing in this case the celery water really takes almost the front stage and in a really good way the salinity of the celery water rounds everything up a little bit like saline solution would do and it makes the bitterness of the Campari much more mellow and the flavor of the celery just pairs beautifully with the botanicals of the gin and the sweet vermouth it is fantastic so my friends this is it for me today thank you very much for watching i hope you like this video leave a thumbs up if you did don't forget to subscribe before you go to visit clarissa's website if you want to upgrade your home bar the links are going to be in the show notes so once again thank you very much for watching have a great day and see you very soon cheers