TIBT: What in the world is Falernum?
It goes without saying that my reliability when it comes to this blog is significantly lacking, but I said it anyway, just so you all know I have NO difficulty admitting my own failures. On the bright side, in my absence I’ve been very busy. Since you last heard from me, I’ve discovered that I can make citrus liqueurs and syrups/mixers involving nuts with ease, and with a decent success rate. I’ve delved into arancellos, orgeat, and falernum – the latter taking the hypothetical cake when it comes to my most exciting mixology related accomplishments. Believe it or not, there’s a story behind my excitement regarding this liqueur.
During my last visit to NYC with my lovely sister, I found myself in a rather swanky craft cocktail bar in the Flatiron District in Manhattan called Dear Irving. There I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Tomr, their brilliant bar manager – and informing him of my quest to bring about the craft cocktail renaissance in the middle Georgia area. As any kind, passionate and personable barkeep ought to, Tomr began to describe all of his ventures and pursuits in the industry, digging through shelves and coolers to procure some of his own personal experiments and concoctions, the most notable of which (in my opinion), was a small bottle labeled “falernum”.
At this point in my career, I had little knowledge of or appreciation for the liqueur, and although he poured me a small sample, and the smile on his face spread to a grin when he saw my expression upon the first taste, I walked away with no more understanding of the creative process than I had at the start of the night (“it’s proprietary information and a top secret recipe”, he said with a smirk). Rather, I carried with me a newfound respect for Tomr and others like him, whose disciplined pursuit of education and innovation in the industry led him to produce – from scratch – a spirit essential to the classic Tiki movement, whose flavor and quality exceeded that of even the most notable commercially bottled versions available on the market today. As a result, production of the same or a similar spirit became a bit of a personal milestone for me, and until recently, I felt certain that it would be many more years before I achieved such a feat.
For those of you who still don’t know, I’ll give you the standard spiel I give to all of my bar guests…”falernum is a sweet rum based liqueur that is flavored with almonds, ginger, star anise, allspice, clove, and lime zest”. I’ll go ahead and amend my own incorrect phrasing, however – as the actual base for this spirit is almonds, and not rum, since the proportion of syrup to rum ends up being around 5:1.
Let’s fast forward to last month – when Historic Macon so graciously asked me to partner with them for a series of pop-up historic preservation Speakeasies that they are hosting monthly during the first quarter or so of 2017. In preparation of our first event, I put my head together with my fabulous and talented colleague Haley Bozeman, and we came up with a four drink menu for the event which we were certain would knock the socks off our patrons. One of her creations we dubbed “The Princess and the Goblin”, which, in its simplest form greatly resembles the classic Rum Swizzle, but this queen of all things agave decided to substitute a meaty, vegetal jalapeño infused mezcal where the rum would normally reside, and add a refreshing cucumber/rice vinegar shrub that I’ve been resting for the last 5 months.
Since we haven’t talked about Swizzles yet, here’s the DL.
The Rum Swizzle (according to the king of the cocktail, Dale DeGroff)
1.5 oz rum
.5oz fresh lime
.5oz simple syrup
.25oz falernum
dash of angostura
lime piece for garnish
As Haley and I completed our recipe preparations and got ready to submit the liquor order, we hit a brick wall: the distributor we were utilizing for the event didn’t carry falernum. Without doing too much research, I assured her there was no need to worry, and that I would make some from scratch and just order the necessary rum from the distributor – problem solved. It wasn’t until the week of the event that I remembered how significant falernum was to my personal perception of the progression of my career, and my excitement was suddenly strangled with anxiety…what if I couldn’t make a presentable falernum? What if all the recipes or guidelines I found were garbage, and led me to produce an obviously sub par product that ruined Haley’s brilliant beverage?
Fortunately, none of these fears were realized, and with the help of the ever-inspiring Imbibe Magazine, I found, followed, and produced a swoon worthy falernum recipe that (needless to say) made me feel very good about myself. Disregard the fact that Imbibe’s recipe is so simple to follow, super straightforward and could probably be considered a difficulty level of 2 on a scale of 10…I’m still proud of myself. After such a successful first attempt, I decided to add my own spin to the second. If almonds are great, toasted almonds are even greater, and although every falernum recipe I have found requires blanched almonds with skin removed, I decided (per usual) to rebel, and made my latest batch with toasted, skin-on almonds instead. You can find Imbibe’s recipe here; I can’t stake any claim to it, but I can say with confidence that YOU can make this at home, and will be delighted with the results.
As for the verdict on my toasted almond experiment? You’ll just have to come see me at Dovetail to find out. But hurry, this gem of a liqueur only has a 2 week shelf life, and if I have anything to do with it, it’ll be gone LONG before then. 😉
Cheers!
– Chelsea
