I’ll preface this by saying I don’t really know what I’m doing. Yes, I read the damn book, Koji Alchemy, and yes, I understand why it’s happening, but a lot of this is just throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Long story short, Koji is a fungi, aspergillus oryzae. Yeah, a mushroom, ding dong. It’s been used for a very long time for all sorts of things you put in your mouth such as soy sauce, sake, shochu, mirin, miso, rice vinegar, yada yada. Yup, those ingredients come about due to various methods of fermentation.

The world doesn’t need sour amazake pistachio orgeat, it’s fine with all the normal ones. If you’ve made any type of orgeat in the past, you’ve done it one of a few different ways. Probably thrown some hot water on the nuts (snicker) and let it sit for a couple of hours, then pureed it in the handy dandy Vitamix blender, strained the mess through a nut bag, then dissolved sugar in it over the stove. This is a great way to make standard orgeat.

Well kiddos, if you’re game, there’s a weirder, not necessarily better, way to do it. If you like umami, the secret reason why some things taste so goddam good, then continue reading. It’s actually real simple and if a moron like me can do it, you probably can too. Here’s what you’ll need:

2 Cups Nuts (Pistachios for this recipe)

1.5 Cups Koji Rice

5 Cups Filtered Water

A medium sized receptacle of some kind

A two quart ball jar

An immersion circulator cooker thingamabob

Stick blender

A four quart measuring cup

A large chinois

A two ounce ladle

A nut bag

A blender

A digital scale

Some sugar

Two quart sized deli containers

A good amount of patience

The first thing to do, before you do anything, is to make sure all equipment is super clean and sanitized. Yes, be a total psycho about this. Just one stray microbe could turn the whole thing to shit.

Ok. Here we go. The first step is to combine the water, koji rice, and pistachios into the two quart ball jar then place it in the medium sized receptacle with water and your immersion circulator. It should look like this:

Set your temp for 135° and allow this to sit for a good 12 hours. When it’s finished, pull it out of the water. It should look like this:

Once you’re here, stick blend all of it. The next step is simply to let time take its course. I usually let it sit out somewhere that is dark and room temp. Koji Alchemy recommends a good week of fermentation. I let it go three or four days, depending on when I start and when my days off occur. the above photo is an older batch that has come and gone. Pictured below is yesterday’s batch once the lid came off.

As you can see, there’s some serious action going on here. See the bubbles? That’s what we’re after. You’ll know if you screwed up, trust me, there will be mold and it’ll smell worse than ass. This smells sour and funky, real funky, but in a good way. There’s a minute amount of booze in there, that’s what’s happening and if you let it go longer and stick an airlock in there, it’ll start to make more alcohol.

Next, strain it through your chinois into the four quart and press as much liquid as you can out of it with the two ounce ladle.

You’ll end up with a nice little liquid at the bottom, but it’s not over yet.

You’ll have to strain this through a nut bag which is a hellish endeavor. You can let it drip for days or do it like I do and squeeze it and hope not to burst the damn bag. Once you have your pure koji pistachio nut milk weigh it out with the digital scale. It’s usually just under 1000 grams. The above batch ended up being 954 grams. Put it in the blender with equal parts sugar. No heat required. Give it a whirl for a couple of minutes to incorporate it and voila. You’ve got your orgeat. You’ll need the two deli quarts to store it.

I’ve got to say, the pistachio is the weirdest one of these so far. I’ve done macadamia, green almonds, and toasted cashew in the past which were more tame. Pistachios are the weird, goth kids of the nut world anyway. Yes, the koji is meant for starchier ingredients but the rice component helps with that. We use this in the latest Lee iteration, Hooked on Lee. There’s an odd pistachio flavor combined with much umami and it’s sour, even combined with the sugar.