5 Second Gin and the Reconstituted Clover Club

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Or, if there's no gin on mars you can bloody well keep it.

So far we've been able to recreate vodka and white rum in accordance with the parameters of our off-world bar experiment. While this will certainly do for some, I am of the firm opinion that a new world without gin is not a world worth inhabiting. I suppose it is the British heritage coming out strong in me; they certainly believed just that, adapting (stealing) it from the Dutch and spreading it across the globe as they spread the tendrils of their empire. 

Gin is defined simply as a neutral spirit with a predominate juniper flavour. Beyond that there are few parameters, with gin having all manner of traditional and not-so-traditional botanicals to flavour the spirit. 

So the most important thing I needed first was juniper berries - not easy to come by in the desert, but after a month or so of searching the good people at Bombay Sapphire provided that all-important ingredient. Dried juniper fits into the parameters of the experiment as it is dried and has as extended shelf life- however I did not want to increase the weight of ingredients (and by extension the cost of the final spirit) by also bringing all the raw botanicals. Instead I assembled a few essential oils and set about making my instant gin. 

I gathered oil of bergamot, rose, dehydrated lemon peel and essence of Mediterranean Pine alongside my juniper, with vodka standing in once again as our reconstituted space spirit. I've always had a soft spot for American gins, and vaguely remembering some Oregon gin I once drank that I can't for the life of me remember the name of but had a very pine-y flavour, I wanted to have that fresh almost mentholated edge to the gin. I rounded that out with the rose. The recipe for 5-second gin follows below.

Five - Second Gin Recipe

1 tbsp juniper berries 

2 thumb-length strips of dehydrated lemon peel

3 drops Mediterranean Pine oil

3 drops rose oil 

5 drops bergamot oil

150 ml neutral spirit

Add all to an isi charge and charge with a nitrous oxide canister. 

The method we use to create our five second gin is what is called a 'flash infusion', and is one of those bartending fads that rose and fell very quickly, but is starting to make a comeback. You can read more about it here and here, but if you are in a hurry here is the short version: 

By increasing the air pressure inside the chamber, you force the nitrous oxide through the cellular membrane of the item inside. Oxygen is too large a molecule to be forced easily into a cell, so when pressure is increased smaller gas structures escape into the organic matter inside the vacuum chamber. Nitrous oxide works better than carbon dioxide because the molecule is smaller and passes through cell walls with greater ease- dispersal through the organic matter is more complete. When the pressure is released the nitrous and oxygen no longer are forced together and the nitrogen tries naturally to escape, creating the violent bubbling and bringing the essential oils and flavours out of the matter and into the spirit. Softer materials infuse better than hard spices, because they allow for easier passage of gasses when the pressure is increased.

So here is the result, our charged gin! One thing I did not expect was the opaque colour of the spirit, reminiscent of the clouding or 'louching' that occurs when you add water to (good) absinthe. That occurs because the thick turpene oils in absinthe fall out of suspension when the water/spirit ratio is altered- perhaps the coniferous juniper berry has a similarly thick oil present in it's flesh?

I know it is hard to describe a flavour from a description but I was pleasantly surprised at how much my instant gin tasted like the real deal even when it did not match it in appearance. I even have it to one of my bartenders and he made a proper ginface in response, so that illustrates just how accurate this method is in recreating a juniper-predominant spirit - a gin. 

That's a Ginface

So now we have our flash-infused five second gin, so now we can start making some gin cocktails. 

Seeing as I still had some freeze-dried raspberry powder left over from the Max Planck cocktail I thought I would go for the Clover Club, that deceptively pink and fluffy classic that packs a respectable wallop of gin when made correctly. 

The usual suspects

We've also got citric acid to replace the lemons, dehydrated albumin protein (no chickens in space means no eggs means no easy sours or silver fizzes...). I've also added some xantham gum again to thicken the mix and improve consistency, something that I feel has been lacking from previous attempts.

Reconstituted Clover Club

45ml Five-second gin

30ml mineral water

1/8 tsp xantham gum

1/8 tsp dried protein albumin

1/8 tsp citric acid

1 tsp caster sugar

1.5 tsp freeze dried raspberry powder

Combine all in mixing tin and hit with an immersion blender for ten seconds on high. Add ice, shake and fine-strain into a chilled glass. 

Pink, fluffy and packing a righteous punch of rich gin goodness, I was pretty damn happy with this result. Easily my best reconstituted cocktail so far, it taste exactly like a well- made gin-heavy clover club. 

Hot damn. Definitely one to try at home.
Next up, we can start working on making brown spirits. Signing off for now, follow us on twitter @Zero_G_Drunk and I'll let you know when I turn water into wine.