Mise-en-place is not only a kitchen-task. Almost every bar is already busy with the prep work at least an hour before it opens to the public: making syrups, cutting garnishes, getting everything ready, etc.
The preparatory work takes a little longer for cocktail bars and often includes infusing and batching certain drinks. Jalapeño and Tequila, Caramel fudge and vodka, you name it.
If you want to infuse the flavor of one ingredient into another and you have all the time in the world, you can easily do this by placing both ingredients in a container (such as a glass jar) and allowing it to sit for several weeks. But as you can imagine, this is not always desirable. If you have a Pear Negroni on the menu, and you run out of Pear Campari, you'll want to have the infusion today.
In those cases, the whipped cream sprayer comes to the rescue. No, not to comfort the guest who was looking forward to a Pear Negroni with a blob of whipped cream on his normal Negroni, but to not disappoint that guest and to produce that pear campari within minutes.
Let’s get to it.
Supplies needed
One whipped cream syringe
Two N2O cartridges
1 pear
220ml of Campari
7 minutes of your busy life.
This recipe is for 200ml pear-infused campari. Need more? Then increase the amount of pear and campari proportionally, but NOT the number of N2O cartridges. 2 cartridges remains more than enough.
1. Dice 1 large pear.
2. Pour 220ml campari directly into your whipped cream syringe.
3. Add the pear cubes.
4. Close the whipped cream syringe hermetically.
5. Shoot two N2O (nitrous oxide) cartridges into the whipped cream syringe and remember to shake vigorously a few times after adding a cartridge.
6. Let the mix stand for five minutes. The campari is currently soaking into the pores of the pear cubes.
7. Hold the whipped cream syringe straight and squeeze the handle completely so that all the air is removed from the whipped cream syringe as quickly as possible.
8. Unscrew the cap from the syringe, pour the contents through a kitchen strainer into a bottle and let the pear campari rest for a few minutes.
Voilà! The quick infusion is complete.
By the way, you can perform this infusion with any form of alcohol and any ingredient that is porous, or contains (tiny) air bubbles.
Last but not least: the pear cubes are now infused with campari as well, still edible and very nice as a garnish.
My recipe for a Pear Negroni:
30ml Old Tom Gin (for example Hayman's)
30ml Pear-infused Campari
30ml Bianco Vermouth
Stir your mix until it's ice cold.
Pour into a whiskey glass filled with ice
Garnish with a skeleton leaf of pear.