Let’s break it all down here. This one looks simple at first glance.

Thundershuck

1.5 oz. White Chocolate Infused Tequila

.5 oz. Fresh Lemon Juice

.5 oz. Fresh Lime Juice

.5 oz. Pea Trim Syrup

.5 oz. Dolin Blanc

.25 oz. Mac Daddy

2 Dashes RC Orange Bitters

1 Dash (slight) Shio Koji

Shake, double strain into small coupe.

The white chocolate infused tequila was the biggest surprise. Don’t ask how I came up with the ratio, but it works.

1 liter tequila

220 grams white chocolate

I don’t know what kind of white chocolate we buy. I stole it from pastry. Little white disks. Your mileage will certainly vary with the type you use. The cool part is you can keep reusing the white choc after you strain the tequila off. Once the “washed” tequila is separate, pass it through a coffee filter. The infusion process only saps about 10-20 grams away, so you can just keep adding to it when you want to go again. For any home bartenders you probably don’t have to worry about this.

I advise placing the infusion in a cool area for at least a day. If it gets too warm, you’ll end up with too much choco sludge and definitely need a couple days to filter it all out unless you’re lucky enough to own a centrifuge.

The pea shell syrup takes about five minutes to make but requires a shitload of hardware to pull off. I posted the method to do this last year around this time when I was still young and vivacious. Anyway, read it here and just switch out lots of pea shells for mint. It’s such a cool, easy technique and we’re the only bar that I know of that uses it. The outcome, to me, is one of those things that always looks so freaking cool. It’ll stay green for close to two weeks.

I love how green it is and I love that it’s something from nothing.

The coolest part here is the Mac Daddy. I’ve posted about a couple of different times. Here’s the one about making sour pistachio amazake. Don’t be intimidated by this. It’s quite easy. The recipe is straight out of the book Koji Alchemy.

1 liter filtered water

1 cup whole macadamia nuts

1 cup koji rice

Yeah. That’s really it. Throw the ingredients into a two quart glass jar and then into a vessel of water. Attach your handy dandy immersion circulator in there (in the water, not the jar, dummy) and let it go for 15 hours at 135°. When the time is up, puree the whole damn thing with a stick blender and then let the mess sit for a week. Yes, there’s other things you need to pay attention to in order for the amazake to come out shining. The first order of business is making sure everything is super, super clean and sanitized. Any stray bacteria that gets in there will also procreate. But really, that’s it, it’s so simple.

What it does is add a crazy umami backbone to a cocktail. That’s the intention. It’s a barely discernible savory note at the end that rounds the drink out.

Last but not least, Orange Bitters. We follow the recipe from the book Bitters. I can’t remember the author’s name. Anyway, the recipe is tweaked, of course. We always have a ton of leftover dry orange so we utilize that for whatever we can. Also, we use 192 proof grain alcohol for the infusion instead of the suggested 100 proof vodka which provides a lot more oomph. Otherwise, it’s the same. I’ve got to say that the resulting flavor from making your own orange bitters is vastly better than anything store bought.