Okay, it’s time to get nerdy up in this piece.
Now, I may be a grown woman who pretends to be a respectable adult, but this does not mean I do not have some terribly nerdy geekball hobbies and interests. I spend 85% of my life in front of a computer, I play video games constantly, I will argue with you about Star Trek, and I watch cartoons intended for a much younger demographic than the one I fit into.
What does this have to do with cocktails? Well, a while back I got myself into the really quite wonderful show Avatar: The Last Airbender. Yeah, it’s a Nickelodeon show, and the target age group is about the 8-12-year-old demographic, but really! Trust me! It’s a great show even for adults! No, stop laughing!
Mockery aside, I really enjoy the series, and when I like something, one of my first instincts is to try to see if I can come up with some sort of boozy connection for it. So for Avatar, I took the premise of the four elemental nations and tried to break them down, cocktail-style. If you’re a nerd like me and a fan of the show, you’ll see where I’m coming from with this one; if not, it’s a delicious cocktail that stands on its own.
Water Tribe
Ingredients:
2 oz. shochu
2 oz. unfiltered sake (Nigori)
1/2 oz. umeboshi sugar syrup (recipe follows) OR 1 tsp sugar + muddled umeboshi
1 pinch kosher salt
Umeboshi to garnish (optional)
The umeboshi really are the key to this drink. If you’ve never had them before, they’re sour-salty-sweet little balls of Japanese goodness, available at many Asian markets. Popping one in your mouth by itself is a recipe for puckered lips, but the complex flavor is released nicely in a drink like this.
Umeboshi Sugar Syrup
Like most infused syrups, it’s really pretty simple. You don’t need to make very large batches of this, so I’d suggest 1/2 cup of water and 1/2 cup of sugar, either heated to boiling over the stove or given a solid zap in the microwave (is that gauche, to make simple syrup in the microwave? I do not care). While the water-sugar is heating, drop in 2-3 umeboshi. Once the sugar has dissolved into the mixture, remove the syrup from heat and let the umeboshi steep for about 10-15 minutes. After that, give them a little pop with the back of a spoon and then strain out the solids with a tea ball or your preferred method of straining.
OKAY, THE ACTUAL COCKTAIL RECIPE:
Mix all the ingredients in a shaker with ice, shake thoroughly, and strain into a chilly, chilly cocktail glass. If you don’t want to go through the trouble of making the sugar syrup, simple muddle an umeboshi and a teaspoon of sugar in the bottom of your mixer before adding the liquids. In either case, garnish with an umeboshi and enjoy this salty, sweet, ice-cold full moon of a drink. And watch some cartoons, darn ya!
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