1.6.23

Violet gets a a bad rap. Remember Roy G. Biv? The colors of the rainbow? Yeah, violet, not purple, dude. Purple is bad, it’s heavy handed, it’s gross, common, uncool. It’s been mishandled. Violet on the other hand is elegant, graceful. Have you not heard? Morose is chic. Less red, more blue. Poor thing’s had a tough life. You would too if everyone forgot about you. No wonder she’s so damn shy.

Quick common sense side bar: don’t apply beard oil and then drink coffee unless you want your hot bean juice to taste like sandalwood.

The fickle tiki gods haven’t blessed me with wisdom as of late but I absolutely needed something on the menu. I should have named this one Fueled by Desperation with massive anxiety listed as one of the ingredients. Luckily I had a bunch of stuff around, namely two types of lacto blueberries. The name suggests dairy of some sort. Nope. It stands for lactobacillus bacteria. The same stuff that makes your yogurt tangy. Yeah, the little buggers convert sugars into lactic acid. The real kicker is all you need is salt. Yup. That’s it. Well, that and cleanliness, so keep your greasy fingers out of my jars.

Real OG pickles use only salt, not vinegar. Before you get scared, first realize just how many foods you’ve been eating utilize this process. Kim chi, for one, sauerkraut, and yes, your vaunted processed yogurt. Eat these fermented foods and they tell you many health benefits will ensue. Most notably, healthy dumps.

I was screwing around a bit with some blueberries. First base only here. Get your mind out of the gutter. I fermented two batches two different ways. The first with just salt, so 2% salt by weight and blueberries. Easy. The second with a 2% brine. A fairly interesting experiment because the results were very different. The blues with just salt became dark with pigment and very dense with flavor, whereas the more traditional style berry fermentation in brine became more like regular pickles and retained their shape and structure. Dammit, I forgot to take pictures.

Both styles made it into a syrup along with some leftover blue pea tea from the non-alcoholic New Years menu. We try not to waste anything over here, even the stupid blue tea. Denise had made sherbet with some yuzu that had been loitering around the walk in and from there this puppy formed like Voltron. With total lack of originality, I plugged it all into what we call our “Beelzebubba formula” created by the infamous wunderkind bartender Angel Martinez. Some guy ordered two last night and told me it was delicious. That felt pretty good.

Shrinking Violet

1 1/2 oz. London Dry gin

3/4 oz. Yuzu Calpico

1/2 oz. Dry Vermouth

1/4 oz. Creme de Violette

1/4 oz. Double Blue Syrup

1/4 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice

1/4 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

2 Dashes Yuzu Bitters

Shake, double strain into small coupe (yes it somehow fits), and top with dragon powder.