Damien mixes: Ginger

© Damien Guichard

We asked you live at BCB which ingredient should be in the next Community Cocktail and your choice was ginger!

Bold, spicy, overpowering. Those are the words I would pick to define ginger. Whether relegated to boring highballs as a soda or overly dominant in sours, I have always overlooked ginger as an ingredient that was a little passé.

But the people have spoken! This month we are mixing a ginger-based cocktail. I usually try and look at how to utilise a produce in an unusual way but in this case, I’m going to fully embrace the spice and honour one of my only and all-time favourite ginger-based drinks: the Penicillin – created by bar legend Sam Ross at Milk and Honey in 2005 – the epitome of the modern classic cocktail. It combines ginger, honey with a hint of peat and is an absolute belter of a drink.

© Damien Guichard

So let’s get to it!

This month: no clarification, distillate or fancy equipment – we are going good old syrup.

First step we are going to use fresh, unpeeled ginger. Simply juice it in a centrifugal juicer to get that pure liquid spice.

For 500g of ginger I got a yield of around 300g of juice.

We will then make our syrup using a sous vide bag, honey and sugar and a little extra ingredient: black cardamom pods.

Add into a vacuum bag:

• 300g Ginger Juice
• 150g Sugar
• 150 Honey
• 5 Black Cardamom Pods

Heat up sous vide at 55C for 3h. Strain liquid through. Voilà!

Now because I always like my drinkie with a little fizz, let’s turn this bad boy into a highball.

Penicillin Highball