Fat Washing

THE SKINNY ON FATS AND OILS IN COCKTAILS

WORDS ° Ben Davidson

The Viento by Dave Kerr

The use of animal fats and vegetable oils in cocktails continues to be a way for bartenders to evolve the taste and texture in creative drinks for the ever more adventurous consumer. As we know, it’s in the animal fats and essential oils of fruits, vegetables and botanicals where the flavour molecules reside, and dissolving these and integrating them in to the fabric of a cocktail is still considered to be on the cutting edge of mixology.

For the uninitiated let’s take a quick look back into the development of this trend, which had its roots in New York.

WHAT IS FAT WASHING?

Fat washing is the process of infusing the flavour of animal fats into a spirit. It involves cooking the meat to release the fats, which are collected and strained and mixed with the spirit. Combining the fat and the spirit at a similar warm temperature (approx. 25 degrees Celsius) will give a better absorption of the flavours. By giving it a good shake and allowing to sit in a fridge for 24 hours the flavours have a chance to be dissolved in to the spirit. The cold temperature also gets the fats to rise and solidify allowing them to be skimmed off, followed by filtering out the remaining particulates. This results in a wonderfully delicious spirit with all the flavour, and minimizes of the greasiness of the fat, left behind.

One of the most well-known fatwashed drink is the Benton’s Old Fashioned, a bacon-infused cocktail created by Don Lee at New York’s Please Don’t Tell (PDT). Lee combined two of America’s favourite flavours, bourbon and bacon in a classy drink. Lee, however, credits another New York bartender, Eben Freeman, then working at the wildly innovative WD-50, with his knowledge of fat washing.

Initially bacon fat was used, but other fats such beef, lamb, chorizo sausage, Iberico ham, buttered popcorn and pistachio nuts or anything with a high fat content can be used to fat wash a spirit. Due to the nature of the process, the principles of fat washing allow for the use of any fat, meaning the options to experiment are almost endless.

A few of brands have joined the trend with Australia’s 666 Autumn Butter vodka, created by Melbourne’s mad scientist, Sebastian Reaburn in 2012, made by a process of ‘fat washing’ whole Tasmanian salted butter and split vanilla pods in the rich pot-still vodka for a period of 3 days.

Sydney bar legend, Sven Almenning has also been in on the fat washing game since 2014 with his delicious Smoked Bacon bourbon and the Salted Coconut rum under his The Experiemental Spirits Co. label.

In more recent times, bartenders have been busy exploring the world of plant based fruit and vegetable oils to add deliciously concentrated flavour in small quantities to give the drink the flavours but more interestingly a smooth and silky texture to drinks and cocktails. Whereas animal fats tend to be washed down by a spirit, plant based oils are added directly to the mixing glass, allowing for their texture to add a smoothness and helps take the edge off sharp citrus notes.

We put the call out to the Drinks World Australian Top 25 bartenders to see what the top talent is using in the areas of fats and oils in drinks at their bars and the response was overwhelming.

In the 2017 Bacardi Legacy Australian final, Dave Kerr from The Beaufort in Melbourne created a delicious contemporary cocktail called The Viento, combining fresh pressed strawberries with rum and coconut oil. Dave explains, “It’s used for both texture and flavour in this context. I’ve always loved the idea of using oils in moderation in drinks and it’s been purely textural until I found coconut oil. Because of my love of Piña Coladas, I wanted to use coconut flavour in my drink and giving it a modern context was extremely attractive”.

David Nguyen-Luu from The Barbershop in Sydney sent through a gorgeous sounding drink called Go West, combining Tanqueray, Pisco, St. Germain, fresh lime juice, fresh basil and salted basil olive oil.

David says, “The oil in the drink

Go West by David Nguyen-Luu Pinneapolis by Michael Chiem

creates a nice viscous mouthfeel. The salted basil oil, really adds to the savoury notes of the gin and the subtle saline component helps make the flavours pop”.

Not to be outdone, Martin Lange from Brisbane’s newest hot bar, Saville Row has a new drink called the Red Hawk Down. It includes a homemade goat butter fat washed Tanqueray, matcha tea, and clarified goats milk, and he says, “It adds an acidic and tannic texture to the drink to balance the matcha tea, but it’s quite sour and creamy at the same time, giving a unique texture and works really well in the drink”. Now there’s a drink with about four trends in one!

Former World Class Australia winner, Jack Sotti of Melbourne’s Boilermaker House, showed he’s not one to rest on his levitated laurels, with an inspired scorched macadamia riff on a Daiquiri, that he calls the Maca-Daiquri. Jack says, “The cocktail itself stays true to a traditional Daiquiri. First we prep the scorched macadamia oil by heating two lumps of charcoal on a burner until they’re white hot, then we throw them into a deep pan that has 1 litre of macadamia oil and partially cover. The oil will sizzle and smoke and in a covered pan this will infuse into the macadamia oil. You get a lovely dry, earthy smoke that balances out the round fattiness of the macadamia oil”.

Former Angostura World Champ and Beverage Director at the Swillhouse Group, James Irvine has a caper oil cocktail at Australian Restaurant of the Year, Hubert in Sydney. A riff on a Vesper, it combines the Swillhouse Bartender Series gin by Archie Rose, vodka and a caper infused Lillet Blanc, garnished with three drops of caper oil. James kindly included the method of how to make the caper oil.

Take 300g of good quality olive oil, 30g fresh caper berries, 3 caper leaves. Place all ingredients into a cryovac bag and seal under high pressure. Leave at room temperature for 24 hours. Strain and store in a bottle at room temperature”.

Future icon and current elder statesman, Charlie Ainsbury, co-owner of the Sydney’s This Must Be The Place (too many awards to mention), chimed in with a beautifully described cedar oil drink called the Atlantic, combining Rye Whiskey, verjuice, Suze, Abbott’s Bitters and cedar oil. Charlie opines, “The cocktail is a strong sipper, but much brighter than your usual Manhattan-style drink with Suze and Verjuice lightening things up with a touch of bitterness and acidity. Cedar oil adds a gentle woody aroma as opposed to smoking the glass with wood chips”.

Award-winning bartender and creative genius, Michael Chiem, co-owner of Sydney’s PS40 shared a cocktail he has created for the Chin Chin Sydney opening that is a take on his favourite pizza - Hawaiian! The aptly named Pinneapolis is a Lardo fat washed Plantation Pineapple rum, Campari, lime and LP’s smoked maple syrup and Chinese five spice. As The Gresham’s Ryan Lane said, “Get that in my face!”

Further to the #hamandpineapple trend, Sydney’s Quynh Van Nguyen, from Fred’s, mentioned, “I did a ham and pineapple old fashioned once. Smoked Serrano ham fat washed Havana Club 7 Year Old, Nikka by the Barrel and a pineapple and clove syrup. The owners thought it was too out there so had to just make it a charred pineapple old fashioned instead. Sad face emoji.

Perennial up and comer and competition stalwart, Jono Carr from Sydney’s Kittyhawk has a suitably exotic sounding drink inspired by the grandfather of Tiki himself, Don the Beachcomber, called The Polynesian Pearl Diver, combining Bacardi rum, fresh orange and lemon juices with a coconut and lemon butter. Jono says, “The coconut lemon butter uses the husks of juiced lemons and toasted coconut cooked down with butter and sugar. Sounds sustainable, refreshing and decadent!

Adelaide’s Ollie Margan, managing partner of Maybe Mae has a mandarin oil called the Continental Drift, a riff on the Adonis cocktail. After peeling mandarins for juice and the incredible aromas that resulted he thought there had to be a way to get that aroma into a drink. Ollie says, “Made by taking Australian Apera (similar to fino sherry) and sous vide it at a low temp (25 degrees) for an hour with mandarin skins. The alcohol acts as a solvent and breaks down the waxy outer layer on the skin, releasing the oils which are easily soluble in the fortified wine. We then marry this with Margan off-sweet vermouth, (a native Australian ‘rosso’ style vermouth sweetened with botrytis wine, pomegranate molasses and wild strawberries). The drink is incredibly aromatic, fresh and aperitif. The drink appears clear and whilst it doesn’t have the ‘flavour’ of mandarins, the intense citrus aroma means that you taste the mandarin via the retro-nasal canal which is where flavour is interpreted from taste and aroma in the olfactory bulb”. Flavour straight to the dome!

And just to prove that they are not just cocktail cowboys out in the wild west of Perth, Australia, the ever-youthful Tom Kearney from the Dominion League, has got a butter and roasted pecan fat washed cocktail “On at the moment”, as well as Australia’s favourite Georgian bartender, Dimitri Rtshiladze of Mechanics Institute has an avocado oil and skin fat washed cocktail.

And finally, with the award for the ‘most out there drink’ we have the Cookie Cutter from Ella Rhodes of Cobbler, Brisbane. Combining cookie dough washed Maker’s Mark bourbon, Pierre Ferand dry curacao, orgeat, five dashes of peppermint tincture, served in a Julep cup on crushed ice, finished with fresh mint and shaved chocolate. She says, “Maker’s Mark being a light, sweet, wheaty bourbon can gain a lot of character from something as rich as choc chip cookie dough. Basically, the way I see it is we’re just giving the spirit a ‘boob job’. Taking what’s already there and enhancing it with big, rich, oily textures and flavours. And not to make the spirit sing, but to make the drink come to life”. Ella, we are yaying what you are spraying.