Juice of one grapefruit (about 3 oz)
2 oz applejack
1 tsp maraschino liquor
1 tsp black currant syrup
several slices of very fresh ginger
two or three drops of peach bitters
Shake hard, strain, and serve up. Would be better if muddled before shaken. Garnish w/maraschino cherries.
1. Find a small wire bottle brush. Any stiff-bristled brush will do, but the bottle brush is ideal for getting into all the nooks.
2. Be ready to find bugs. Don’t squeal.
3. Pill bugs are harmless.
4. Some centipedes are not.
5. After a thorough brushing on the outside, cut it into slices about 1/4 – 1/2 inch thick. Be ready for angry things to crawl out without dropping your mushroom on the floor.
6. Put the slices in a bowl of cold water and agitate to remove most of the remaining dirt. As you remove the slices from the water one by one, use your bottle brush to clean the last bits.
7. Move your freshly-cleaned slices onto a cooling rack or other grated surface (got a colander?) and set them in front of a fan for about a half hour or however long it takes to dry the surface water. You could use a paper towel if you prefer, but it’s unlikely you’ll remove enough moisture from the heavily-ridged edges.
8. Put your clean, dry cauliflower mushrooms in a paper bag and store in the fridge until you’re ready to use. Now that they’re no longer infested with dirt and bugs, they’ll keep longer and they’ll be ready to use whenever you want them.
Recipe:
5 ml (1 tsp) Luxardo Maraschino
1.75 oz St. George Agua Azul reposado
15 ml (3 tsp) Ginger syrup
Juice of 1 meyer lemon
Shake above vigorously w/ice. Serve over rocks in glass rimmed with salt and ras el hanout.
Notes:
Smoky and sour with complexity from the luxardo. Mildly spicy with clove from the ras el hanout. Ginger syrup may get lost, but is what I have lying around and it dissolves better than granulated sugar.
