Erato

The goddess of all that entails an innate expression of desire

Provenance

• The inspiration for this cocktail comes from Erato, the muse of erotic poetry & theatrical art of mime — the true goddess of desire via the veritable virtue of expression. How do we achieve that in a cocktail?
• My approach was to achieve a delectable concoction that delivers a savoury experience by tantalizing the entire palate & virtually — as multiple studies are being conducted for more taste receptors for alkaline, fatty, & metallic tastes — all the taste receptors.

Recognizing the Rudimentary Templates to Create a New One

Erato: an avant-garde amalgamation of:

• Contemporary-Classic Sour — w.r.t the use of lemon juice, sweetener, & egg-white,
• Amaro Sour — w.r.t. the use of an Amaro — Italian, bitter-sweet liqueurs, &
• Sidecar — w.r.t. the use of a liqueur in addition to a base spirit & a strong citrus fruit.
• A cocktail with “all” the five tastes: Sweet — Elderflower Liqueur & Lavender Syrup; Sour — Lemon Juice; Bitter — Aperol; Salty — Maldon Salt; & Umami — Egg-White.

The Ingredient-Idiosyncrasies to Imbibe Them in Sync

• Search For a Spirit: A dry gin seems to work the best because of the nature of our quest to find a savoury cocktail that complements — not fights — w/ the other floral & citric elements in this drink.
• St. Germain’s Elderflower Liqueur: Made by permeating the flowers of the elder shrubs that grow in the French Alps with a neutral grape spirit, the smooth-yet-citric finish of this liqueur makes it the perfect ingredient to abide by — in this however-avant-garde concoction — the sidecar orthodoxy.
• Aperol — The Gateway Amaro: Amari are an acquired taste as most of us don’t actively seek out bitter flavour profiles in our diets on the daily. Made w/ rhubarb, cinchona, gentian, herbs, roots, among other ingredients, it’s the citrus oil from both sweet and bitter oranges that contribute the most to the drink.
• Lavender Syrup: The delicate touch of 1:1 syrup — by weight — infused with lavender flowers.
• Maldon Salt, Egg-White, & Lemon Juice — harmonize the latter two in a 1:1.33 ratio in the cocktail.

The Cocktail Calculus — Crafting the Concoction

Dry-Shake w/ Egg-White:

• Why: To aerate an ephemeral-yet-elegant emulsion; that’s what this cocktail is — an emulsion*.
• What it is: An emulsion is a type of colloid — like gels & sols — containing two or more immiscible liquids suspended in a homogenous, relatively stable state.
• How it is done: Egg-white is an excellent emulsifier because of the abundance of albumin & the presence of both hydrophilic & hydrophobic amino acids (what proteins are made of). So, when you aerate the cocktail by dry-shaking, you agitate and uncurl the globular & other proteins in a manner that makes the hydrophilic amino acids stick inside where the water is & the hydrophobic ones pop out to form a smooth, creamy structure of proteins that holds the air that was introduced — by vigorously dry-shaking the cocktail.

Wet-Shake — The Addition of Ice:

The creamy-smooth, colloidal texture created by dry-shaking happens because of something known as protein denaturation — as we did above. Another — among many other ways — way of achieving that is via hydrolysis — the addition of water. That’s why the addition of ice (instead of water in the old days), with the advent of the Reverse-Carnot technology, works wonders as:

• It dilutes & chills the cocktail to achieve the desired volume & temperature,
• And takes protein denaturation to another level by introducing hydrolysis — by breaking the weak peptide bonds between the long chains of amino acids.

Double-Strain w/o Ice:

The addition of ice after double-straining would make this drink more of an eggless fix — & we’re indulging in the art of making a sour. The dilution is controlled depending on the size and wetness of the ice; adding any more ice would lessen the flavour by diluting the cocktail. Besides using the Hawthorne strainer, a fine-mesh strainer keeps any unwanted impurities in the shaker and gets rid of the pesky bubbles — making for a smooth, creamy, well-textured cocktail that ensures that the last sip is the same as the first one.

*This emulsion will start to separate by the virtue of creaming by gravitational separation & increase in temperature. That’s why the right technique will go a long way in making this delectable cocktail last longer .

This Cocktail Craves a Companion

It is very versatile in terms of what it welcomes but needs a fatty element, so here are three pairings:

• Tomato Salad — Tomatoes & feta will dial up the umami; the cheese will also texturize the pairing.
• Lamb Keftedes — The cooperative texture of the meatballs & the roasted-red-pepper sauce will pair well.
• Dark-Chocolate Olive Oil Cake — Counter-intuitive but plays well with dark-chocolate fat.