Explorations in Mixology Cocktails Drinking

#5

Here’s an absolutely delicious cocktail that we don’t think you are ever going to make—but that’s a mistake. We challenge you to try this yourself. The mango syrup featured here requires a little effort but it is not difficult, and the ingredients are easy to find. Once you pull it together, you can store any extra in the freezer, but it is more likely that you will use it up quickly because the drink is so good. And even if you don’t make the syrup exactly as described, a shortcut mango syrup is still going to work given the layers of reinforcing flavors. You will understand more about that below. The unconventionally-named #5 is a spicy bourbon sour from San Francisco bar, Trick Dog where it appeared on their seasonal menu back in 2015.

The execution of this drink is pretty straightforward, starting with a base of high-proof bourbon. Trick Dog used Old Grand-Dad Bonded, but we had great luck with Early Times 100-proof. It is sweetened with mango syrup and chile pepper liqueur to balance the lemon juice, and a healthy dose of Angostura to bring it all together. Simple enough, right? Now, about that mango syrup—you can probably buy a version somewhere, but it won’t really be the same, so we will focus most of our attention on this homemade ingredient.

#5
1.5 oz high-proof bourbon
.75 oz mango syrup (see below)
.75 oz lemon juice
.5 oz Ancho Reyes Chile Liqueur
4 dashes Angostura Bitters

Shake with ice to chill, then strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice and garnish with a dehydrated orange and candied ginger.

For the mango syrup, there are probably other ways to make it that don’t involve so many precise components, but the effect here is more than the sum of its parts. We found everything we needed at Walmart, but none of this is impossible through local grocery stores or even Costco. The Trick Dog recipe uses metric measurements, so get out your scale and we’ll walk you through it.

Mango Syrup
1500 grams evaporated cane sugar
1 liter filtered water
850 grams mango puree
2 bottles Mexican Coke (355ml, 12 oz size)
100 grams ginger, sliced
1.5 tsp kosher salt

Add everything to a pot over medium heat and stir to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a simmer, then set aside to cool for 4-6 hours. Strain and bottle.

Let’s start with the Mexican Coke. Why is this in a mango syrup? Cola pairs beautifully with mango, so we get it. All of the vanilla, fruit and spice from the cola is going to boost the character of the mango in this syrup. But why Mexican Coke? It’s clear the intention here is to avoid using any high fructose corn syrup, and we appreciate that. As we have discussed in the past, Mexican Coke is still bottled using an older recipe that supposedly uses cane sugar. Fortunately, you don’t have to go to Mexico to buy it. This version of Coca Cola costs a little more, but you can find it at Costco, fancy grocery stores, or as we said, even Walmart carries it. As a last resort, many local taco joints serve Mexican soda out of their beverage refrigerators! The key here is to use two 12-ounce bottles. If you happen to get the bigger half-liter bottles like the ones from Costco, just use one and reduce the recipe slightly by multiplying all of the other ingredients by 70%. Since we are on the sugar part of this syrup, know that evaporated cane sugar is just sugar in the raw. It will be slightly brown, and bags of natural cane sugar are easy to find. It has a little more molasses flavor, but you can certainly get away with plain white granulated sugar.

Mango puree may not be an ingredient you will find, and fresh mango isn’t always available or ripe, but mango chunks can be found in the frozen food section of the grocery store. Since this recipe includes adding water, we weighed out frozen mango and tossed it into the blender with the additional water. This made fast work of thawing out the fruit and turning it into a puree at the same time as incorporating the water specified. All if it goes into the sauce pan with the Coke and sugar. Don’t forget the salt which brings out the flavors of everything.

Finally, some sliced ginger will add a bit of burn to this flavorful syrup. This will run in parallel with the chile liqueur, so if you opt to make a simpler mango syrup or decide to use a commercial product as a substitute, you still get spiciness from the liqueur, it just won’t be as nicely reinforced with the ginger in the syrup. Once the sugar dissolves and it starts to simmer, any carbonation in the Coke is going to bubble away. Cover the pot and set it aside to cool for half the day so the flavors infuse. Later, pour it through a fine sieve or layers of cheese cloth to strain out any bits of mango and ginger. This is your syrup. Bottle it and use within a week or so, or freeze any extra. But get ready to use it up. You are gonna love this drink!

At Trick Dog they garnished with cilantro syrup-soaked cubes of mango, but we have enough going on. We opted for the suggested backup garnish: a gorgeous dehydrated orange slice and candied ginger. We have always wanted to try making dried citrus slices but we never owned a food dehydrator. This is where McMann & Tate saves the day! They do the hand slicing and the dehydrating for you and sell these slices in a jar. It is such a great time saver and perfect for whenever you don’t have a fresh orange in the house. They are Bewitchingly fragrant as well. With the holidays coming up, we think bar-related consumables always make the best gifts for the fellow cocktail enthusiast. A jar of Dried Orange and a bottle of your homemade mango syrup is going to make someone very happy indeed!

So how does it taste? As whiskey sours go, this is perhaps our favorite. The syrup is not overly sweet, but it is thick enough to add some texture while the lemon keeps it in balance. We can see why a high-proof bourbon works well, as you need the extra kick of flavor to poke through. As we mentioned, cola and mango pair nicely together, but even with a simpler mango syrup, the Angostura parallels this effect. There are a lot of reinforcing flavors going on, but the highlight is the spicy burn from the Ancho Reyes and the ginger. We hope after reading this someone out there will give it a try and let us know how it turned out.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments