The benefits of keeping on open mind

Passport & Plate - Sorrel Cocktail

Dominica | Friday, March 6, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
1.5 oz white rum
1 oz sorrel syrup*
.5 oz fresh lemon juice
3 drops Angostura bitters
lemon zest for garnish

*sorrel syrup
2 C water
1 C dried sorrel sepals
1.5 tbsp clove, whole
2 inches fresh ginger
1 orange, zest only
1 cinnamon stick

1.5 C sugar

 

How to prepare this recipe
To prepare the sorrel syrup:

In a heavy bottom sauce pan, boil water. Remove from heat, add remaining ingredients excepting sugar. Steep for several hours. Strain tea through fine mesh or cheesecloth, discard solids (optional, retain some of the sepals for garnish). Return remaining liquid to pan. Add sugar. Heat over medium, stirring frequently until sugar dissolves. Allow to cool.

To prepare the Sorrel Cocktail

In a cocktail shaker add, rum, syrup, lemon juice and bitters. Fill 3/4 with ice, shake vigorously for 20-30 seconds, pour into old fashioned glass filled with cracked ice, garnish with lemon zest and/or sorrel sepal.

 

The story behind this recipe
I can’t believe I’m admitting this but my most popular recipe ever was solidified after a cruise through the Caribbean. I travel to ingest other’s culture. I want to know a place and it’s people by eating and imbibing what the locals do. The idea of laying in the hot sun all day, drinking diabetes inducing cocktails and eating whatever food an island can afford to import has very little appeal. Even less so, to be on a floating buffet that eliminates the requisite stomach space to eat local cuisine and blood alcohol levels for regional spirit.
However, when the opportunity came to give cocktail and cooking demonstrations on an luxury ship touring the Caribbean, saying no wasn’t an option.
I had been working with a drink known as Sorrel and was eager to show the recipe as we visited the places where it’s so popular. A task made easier when I found fresh sorrel sepals in season at the magnificent outdoor market in Dominica. Far from a sandy tourist outpost, Dominica is a lush volcanic island with no international airport and self sustained agriculture. I found my island paradise.
In a short drive up just one of the mountainsides we found wild ginger, peeled fresh bark from a cinnamon tree and saw the Hibiscus plants from which the sorrel sepals are harvested. Dominica is fiercely devoted to their local ingredients and that includes the production of their own rum. The Macoucherie rums are the only ones produced with indigenous sugar cane. They even make one with the bois-bandé, a purported aphrodisiac.
My visit was brief but I now understand why all of the flavours in the drink combine so well. I had been using a variety of imports to create the drink but it spoke of a place where these items grow wild together. Floral notes and tannic structure from the sepals compliment the bite and zing of the spices. The rich sweetness of the rum is balanced by the sour tang of citrus. Warmth emanates from the relaxing combination just as it does on the island.