I know little to nothing about sunchokes except for what happens after you eat them…You know…Chamber music…Tubers are in…They always have been. Taters, ginger, galangal, horseradish…But in a cocktail? Hmmm. I mean, if you think about it, anything can be included in a cocktail. Sunchokes are creamy, nutty, a little earthy. I don’t see much wrong with them except they’re weird and not a common ingredient but then again, neither is white sapote or any other strange thing other cultures except ours are familiar with.

A few common misconceptions exist about the sunchoke. 1. They are the root of sunflowers. Nope. They are not in fact sunflower roots but the roots of a flowering plant similar in appearance to a sunflower…Ish…I don’t know where this one came from but chefs have been telling me this for years and the flowers, at least to me, don’t look anything like sunflowers. I don’t know, see for yourself…

They’re in the same genus as a sunflower, so kissing cousins.

Misconception numero dos: They are related to artichokes. Yes, they are called a Jerusalem artichoke, but no, they are not related to artichokes in the slightest. I mean, does it look like an artichoke? They say this all came about from a mispronunciation of the Italian for sunflower which is “girasole.” It seems this happens a lot. An artichoke more resembles an alien form of a thistle than a sunchoke if you ask me. And yes, I just looked that up and I’m right. Thistles and artichokes are all members of the Cardoon family.

So…A sunchoke cocktail? I thought about this quite a bit over the last week because pastry chefs are always using these knobby fart makers…So why not the bar too? They (the pastry peeps) mostly make a sunchoke milk and then some fried chips…Yada, yada…Hey man, I can make sunchoke milk too…But dairy free and a lot tastier. Yeah, it’s no secret, just go to your trusty Koji Alchemy book, use the recipe for sour amazake, and plug in some chopped sunchokes.

Yes, I did this and waited five days. The result was some of the best amazake I’ve had…However…A little funky in that unique sunchoke way. I’d include a snapshot, yes I do have one, but my gmail is acting wonky. Anyway, I used some frozen former amazake from the freezer–a inoculated batch of almond from a couple weeks ago, we’ll call in pre-inoc from now on. Yeah, hold on to your old batches and you’ll save money on having to keep purchasing koji rice which is a little pricey.

So then what to do with it? Well, I say combine it with other nutty things that don’t actually include nuts. We’ve got so much noyaux hanging around right now. That’s a start. There’s also sesame oil which is a little nutty too.

The hardest part about the cocktail will be how to put it down on the menu without scaring people off. Menu subterfuge. I’ll have to come up with a name instead of sunchoke or Jerusalem artichoke, maybe I’ll call it girasole? Sounds exotic and people usually don’t read into the menu too far.

Would Chamber Music be a good cocktail name? It’s literary after all.

Yes, it was intended as a double entendre by Joyce who is said to have arrived at the idea by sitting on a certain type of pot.