Turn Late-Summer Produce Into Cocktail Ingredients

In the Sept/Oct 2024 issue, Christine Sismondo explores how bartenders are working with farms to create unique and fresh flavors by transforming seasonal produce into cocktail ingredients. For tips on how to bring this trend home, we reached out to Jazzton Rodriguez and Demi Close of Very Good Drinks. The recipe developers have quickly built a social media following with their fresh takes on classics, such as the 50/50 Tomato Margarita and the Caesar Salad Martini.

For Rodriguez and Close, the farm-to-glass trend wasn’t just about customizing flavors; it’s also an budget-friendly way to make cocktail ingredients. “We call it ‘down home cooking style,’” says Rodriguez. “We go with what we can get and see how we can make it work.” Instead of trying to source an esoteric liqueur, for example, they find inspiration from a flavor and try to replicate it in a more cost-effective way. For late-summer, the duo picked their favorite seasonal produce and shared their easy techniques to transform them into cocktail ingredients.

Salted Tomato Syrup

“I love tomato syrup,” says Rodriguez. To make it, he and Close cut up ripe tomatoes, place them in a container, and add an equal weight of sugar. Let the sugar dissolve and stir the mixture every few hours. After a day to a day and a half, the sugar will completely dissolve, depending on the water content of the tomatoes. Next, strain out the liquid and weigh it, adding salt to 1 percent of that amount. Rodriguez recommends using the leftover sugary tomato pulp as a jam for toast and the salted tomato syrup in a tomato Paloma. 

This oleo saccharum technique can be applied to any produce with high water content. “We’ve done it with basically anything we have left over that we aren’t going to use in cooking,” says Rodriguez. “It’s easy and preserves the fresh flavor of whatever you’re macerating a little bit more than other methods, like cooking.” They’ve also made syrup out of fresh sweet corn that they call “corn oleo” and have used to make a corn “horchata” mixing it with coconut milk and coconut water.

Pepper Tincture

A pepper tincture is a simple way to add heat to cocktails (like a Margarita). And making it a cinch, says Rodriguez: Add chopped-up peppers to high-proof alcohol, let it sit for a few hours, and taste frequently until the preferred heat is reached. Then, strain out the peppers and bottle the liquid. Rodriguez and Close also make tinctures with different spices to create a flavor library. “Almost anything can be a tincture,” he says. “Spices, vegetables, hardy herbs.” 

Agua Fresca

Turn any fruit, such as peaches or watermelons, into a refreshing beverage by cutting it up (removing seeds), adding it to a blender with sweetener, such as maple syrup or agave syrup, and blending. Strain the liquid into a pitcher. “You can add a little bit of ascorbic acid and it lasts a bit longer, too,” says Rodriguez. 

Stone Fruit Liqueurs

Make liqueurs with cherries, peaches, or plums by adding the fruit to alcohol (vodka, gin, or rum) and letting them infuse. “We’ll leave it in the sun for, like, seven days,“ says Rodriguez. For their cherry liqueur, they infuse the fruit (with pits) in alcohol for six days. Then strain out the cherries (which can be saved for cocktail garnishes), add sugar to the liquid, and let it sit one more day until the sugar completely dissolves.

Herb Oils

Keep soft herbs, such as basil, cilantro, dill, and chives, around longer by using them to flavor olive oil. Just be sure to blanche the herbs first. Quickly dunk the herbs into a pot of boiling salted water and then throw them in an ice bath. Dry the blanched herbs with a paper towel, remove stems, add the leaves to the oil, and blend well. Strain out the solids and bottle for use. Close and Rodriguez use their homemade herb oil to imbue their grilled rhubarb gimlet with fresh, herbaceous notes.