brian.preston-campbell.com

At the risk of sounding like Jerry Seinfeld during his old standup years, I have to ask the question, "What's the deal with all of these flavored waters I see at my neighborhood deli lately?!?" So I asked people I know, "What's wrong with regular water?" And the answer I got across the board is that plain water is just too... plain. I can see that. I try to exercise regularly and sometimes I just don't want to drink another liter or two of tap water, even though I know my body needs it. It turns out that even I occasionally wouldn't mind a little excitement in my water. But at the same time, do I need to buy my flavored water from the store? Do I really need 'enhanced' water with vitamins, minerals, electrolytes, and more often than not, sugar (or even worse, high fructose corn syrup)? I say no.

So for my initial inspiration, I thought back to when I was a kid, way back in the late 1970's when fine dining restaurants used to put slices of lemon in water glasses. Spas and health clubs have also been making their own naturally flavored water for years. On a recent trip (actually my only trip, ever) to a spa, I was offered three different flavors of water - lemon and rose, cucumber, and mint infused waters. I tried them all. The friendly staff confirmed what I already had suspected, that they were made fresh every day with nothing more than filtered water and a few all natural ingredients. So what's stopping me, and you for that matter, from flavoring water at home?

It sounded reasonable enough, so I set out to create my own signature flavors of H20. The thing I realized early on in my experimentation is this: The great thing about water is it is completely neutral tasting. (At least it should be, but there are filters that can fix bad tasting water.) It seems pretty obvious to say that water has no flavor, but for our purposes this is really a good thing. Any simple ingredients that are added to the water only make it taste more interesting! Eureka!

The next steps were to gather ingredients, filter some water and begin creating. My goals were to keep all of the ingredients as raw as possible, to avoid adding any sugar (other than those found in the fruits and vegetables I was planning to use), make them easy to prepare, and use interesting flavors that work well with food. I started simple, as the recipe below shows, and moved into several realms of complexity. Forty-three recipes later, I had myself a decent collection of water to serve for just about any occasion - with breakfast, lunch, or dinner, after exercise, before going to bed, you name the time of day and I could fill a glass with something unique to drink.

Thus begins my series of simple, yet great tasting water recipes. Check back here for regular updates and information on my upcoming book on the subject, "Cool Waters" (Available Spring 2009 from Harvard Common Press).

Simply Balmy

Lemon balm is a member of the mint family that aids digestion and can relieve nervous tension – who wouldn't want that to be an essential part of their day? Look for potted lemon balm plants at farmer’s markets or ask a friend with a garden for a cutting. Much like mint, it is easy to grow and spreads rapidly. The lemon juice provides a hit of vitamin C.

Prep Time: 15 minutes, plus 4 hours to steep
Makes six 10-ounce servings

1 tablespoon caraway seed
1/4 cup fresh lemon balm leaves (the tips are best)
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 quarts still water, at room temperature

1. In a small dry sauté pan, toast the caraway seeds lightly over medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Do not allow to burn
2. Place the toasted seeds in a pestle along with the lemon balm and lemon zest. Grind lightly with the mortar and place into a sachet made of cheesecloth or large tea ball.
Place the sachet into a large pitcher, add the lemon juice and water, and allow to steep in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.
3. Remove the sachet and serve chilled.

On more than one occasion, I had toyed with the idea of making my own Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/), but lacked the time to create the XML file needed to add information to my map. Honestly, I found the Google Map API to be a little confusing, so I gave up on the ideas I was throwing around -- a block-by-block NYC street parking guide (with alternate side parking rules and times), my running routes (already done, I found out by using http://www.mapmyrun.com), photo studio locations around the city, or any other thing I wanted to keep geographical tabs on.

Imagine my surprise when the uber-geniuses at Google added a new feature to Google Maps. As of a few weeks ago, it's possible to easily make your own maps on Google. One can create points with notations and even draw lines and shapes on a map that can be shared with anyone with an internet connection.

Naturally I jumped at the opportunity to use the system. But what kind of map did I want to make? Slice, the infamous pizza blog posted a map with all of the places they have reviewed, so pizza was out of the question. The parking map would take a lot of work, and I wanted to test drive the site ASAP. What I needed was a small number of locations to plot with information that was readily available. By coincidence, my wife, Rebecca, sent me a link to all of the major locations of restaurants in New York City that specialize in serving Bánh mì, or Vietnamese sandwiches. Her research came on the heels of a New York Magazine review of the new Willimsburg, Brooklyn restaurant, Silent H and came to me in the form of a link to nychinatown.org. It almost seemed too easy.

Long story short, all it took was some copying and pasting from the email into my web browser and my map was on its way to completion. If you get that special urge to eat baguette, cucumber, pickled carrots and daikon, my bánh mì map resides on the Google server in this location:
http://tinyurl.com/3e2mt6

If you find that I have missed a place worth adding, send me an email or post a comment and I will add it to the map. This offer applies to any bánh mì joint, not only those found in the five boroughs.

To follow my last two postings, Pinapple Soju and Wasabi Infused Shochu, I thought I would continue my attempts to get some interesting flavors into clear liquors from the Far East. Why? Because I have a lot of the stuff on hand. For New Years we had a small gathering of 2 year olds and their parents. In preparation, I bought six mixed bottles of soju and shochu from Astor Wines (they offer free delivery to Brooklyn on Saturdays. How could I resist?) for our drinking age guests. I managed to mix a few chu-hai for some of our skeptical adult guests, but by the end of the party I was left with just over five bottles. So what to do with almost four liters of liquor? Find something to infuse in it of course!

The next step was to look for some flavors I might like to add to one of the bottles of Japanese shochu I was left holding. I dug through my pantry and found a six-ounce box of Scharffen Berger cocoa nibs. It seemed like a natural choice and for more reasons than my love of all things chocolate.

In the middle of December 2006 I was hired by photographer Melissa Punch to style a cocktail book called Good Spirits for Harvard Common Press. To the victors go the spoils, and I won the remaining booze at the end of the week, simply by virtue of being the only one that wanted it. In the mix of about twelve liqueurs were bottles of both clear and dark creme de cacao, as well as a small bottle of Godiva chocolate liqueur. My only problem with all of these liqueurs was not their chocolate flavor, it was that they were too damn sweet.

Enter the cocoa nib, a roasted, cracked cocoa bean with all the flavor of cocoa powder in a more managable size. Sure, I could have made some kind of brittle and added the nibs to it, or I could have sprinkled them over ice cream and that would be good too. But I would still have all those bottles of shochu and soju.

The steps of this infusion differ slightly from the last two, which was to basically put the stuff in the liquor and put it in the fridge for a week, at the end of the week, drink. The cocoa flavor needs a little more coaxing - I found I needed to apply a small amount of heat energy. Not only did this extract a huge amount of flavor from the cocoa, it also shortened the process to a mere twenty-four hours.

Cocoa Shochu

The method is as easy as melting chocolate in a double boiler. The only challenge is to be sure that the temperature of the soju doesn't go higher than 130° Fahrenheit (54°C). It's worth the extra effort because doing so will retain more of the alcohol in the shochu and quickly bring the flavor out of the nibs.

6 ounces cocoa nibs
1 750 ml bottle good quality shochu or soju

Pour the cocoa nibs and liquor into a heat-proof bowl. Place the bowl over a pot of simmering water, double boiler style and put the probe of a digital thermometer into the liquid. Slowly bring the shochu to 130° Fahrenheit (54°C), occassionally stirring the mixture as it warms. Pour the entire contents of the bowl into a glass jar (again I rely on my favorite, a 1 quart Mason jar), cover and allow to cool to room temperature. When the jar is cool to the touch, put it in the fridge for 24 hours. Strain through a chinois or fine mesh strainer and refrigerate.

ChuCoco

1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 cinnamon sticks, broken into 1" pieces
cocoa shochu
plain soy, almond, or rice milk*

For the cinnamon simple syrup:
In a small saucepan, heat the water, sugar, and cinammon stick to the boil. Remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Remove the cinnamon and reserve.

To make a ChuCoco:
Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Add 1 ounce of the cinnamon simple syrup, 2 ounces of the milk, and 3 ounces of prepared cocoa shochu. Shake well and strain into a rocks or small cocktail glass. Optionally dust the foam with a little ground cinnamon or cocoa powder. Make a few more.

*I tried this drink with good ole cow milk but the results were just not as good. I found that the nice creamy foam shown in the photo only happens when I used a non-dairy milk. With the flavors of the cinnamon and cocoa in this cocktail, you won't even know it's not real dairy.

A google blog search for soju recenty turned up a blog that adamantly stated that one of the most popular distilled beverages in the world just happens to be, and I quote, "NASTY". WTF? Surely the author of said post has not considered the gustatorial possibilities of this drink. As someone that spends a lot (and I mean a lot) of time thinking about how to add flavor to the flavorless, and how to make everyday foods more exciting, I look at soju as a challenge. Here you have a beverage that is yearning to be flavored; flavored with just about anything you can get your hands on.

Rewind one week. I had a pineapple, it was ripe. It needed to be eaten lest it go to waste. Any self-respecting chef garde manger will tell you that your average pineapple, be it Costa Rican, Puerto Rican, or Hawiian, has a yield of edible pulp somewhere in the neighborhood of 60%. What to do with the remaining 40% that consists mainly of rind, core, and crown? Stick it in a jar with some Green Soju, of course!

That's just what I did. Five days later I had a soju infusion that not only tasted great straight, it was almost a different drink altogether. Now I didn't invent the concept of putting fruit in clear liquor, I'm sure it's been around for at least as long as mankind has been making vodka, rum, cachaça, soju and shochu. The Japanese call the process kajitshu-shu and there's even a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that specializes in it. At any given moment, Bozu offers more than 20 kajitshu-shu to be enjoyed straight or in cocktails. But that's a whole other subject, back to the matter at hand.

My choice of inusion vessels was a very un-Asian quart Mason jar and lid. The size is perfect since an entire 750ml bottle of soju will fit nicely with room to spare for the other ingredients. I'm not sure if this even warrants a recipe, but here goes.

Pineapple Soju

1 bottle soju
Entire core and 1/2 rind from a ripe pineapple
a few black peppercorns, lightly crushed (optional)

Pour soju into glass jar. Add pineapple and optional pepper. Put in refrigerator for at least five days (a week, if you can wait that long). Serve over one large ice cube, garnish with a lime wedge. Put feet up. Share with friends.

Tags: soju - infusion - shochu - pineapple

Soju, I have noticed, is a word a lot of New York bars and restaurants are throwing around these days. But just what is soju? Soju and its Japanese counterpart, shochu, are neutral grain spirits usually containing 20-43% alcohol. For the most part, they are clear, super light tasting beverages similar in character to vodka. Their beauty lies in a lack of strong flavor and low alcohol content, allowing them to be mixed with just about every conceivable ingredient to produce some really unique cocktails.

For a super-brief history, soju is a distilled grain beverage that originated in Korea around 1300 AD, during the Mongol occupation of the Korean peninsula. It was traditionally made from rice with the addition of other ingredients, such as sweet potatoes, barley, wheat, or tapioca. It is speculated that Japan was introduced to soju around the year 1400 AD and the Japanese began to produce their own version, called shochu, in the town of Kagoshima, on the island of Kyūshū.

Soju and Shochu are very similar, though some argue that Japanese shochu is generally more refined than Korean soju. From my own tasting experience, there is a lot of variation of both liquors, so for me the verdict is still out on which country (or even producer) makes the best s(h)o(j)(ch)u.

In both countries, these distilled beverages have enjoyed a somewhat checkered past. Historically they were the drink of the working man, drunk mainly to get one, well, drunk. In more recent times, they have become the base of cocktails, both simple and complex. There is a rising surge in popularity of soju and shochu cocktails in Korea and Japan, and in a few Western cities as well.

Importation of soju and shochu into the US recently increased dramatically when two of the country's most populous states, California and New York, amended their liquor laws to allow the sale of soju in bars and restaurants that only have a license to sell wine and beer. Stipulations of those laws include: The soju (or shochu) must be less than 25% alcohol and the word 'Soju' must appear on the label of the bottle in English. This explains why many Japanese producers of shochu print the name 'soju' on their labels, only adding confusion to the uninitiated as to what shochu and soju actually are. As a result of these new laws, many bars and restaurants that would not normally be able to sell cocktails are now pushing their own unique soju drinks.

Soju and shochu, being flavor-neutral and clean tasting, are ideally suited to have other flavors infused in them. A few bars in New York are creating their own unique infusions such as carrot, shiso, ginger, and a myriad of other interesting flavors. The process is as simple as adding some fruit, herbs, vegetables or spices to the liquor and allowing it to steep for as little as 24 hours or as long as two weeks. The duration really depends upon what will be infused in the booze. I personally have tried infusing passion fruit, mango, vanilla beans, pineapple, and most recently, fresh wasabi.

To be completely modest, the wasabi shochu I made was really delicious. After one week in the fridge, it had a very clean and slightly spicy wasabi flavor. Contrary to what I expected, it didn't have any sinus clearing power, just a short burn in the finish. If you can stomach the price of fresh wasabi, I definitely recommend trying the infusion below. Unfortunately the wasabi is pretty much useless after soaking in shochu for a week, but you could try to do something with it. Mine was bland and starchy compared to what it tasted like when it went in the bottle.

Wasabi Infused Shochu (Soju)

Unfortunately there’s really no substitute for fresh wasabi in this infusion. The powdered version that comes with your sushi, if it contains wasabi at all, is usually mostly inexpensive regular horseradish, dried mustard powder, and green coloring. The fresh root is sporadically available in the US due to its 18 month growing season and climactic requirements. This means it retails from $75 to $100 a pound from various retailers, and online from realwasabi.com. For this recipe, I use about $20 worth of fresh, green, brightly flavored real wasabi root that I found at Mitsuwa in Edgewater, New Jersey.

1 750 ml bottle good quality Shochu or Soju
1 5-6 inch piece fresh wasabi (.2 lb)
1 half small yuzu, peel only (optional)

Wash the root under cold water, scrubbing lightly to remove any dirt trapped in the skin. Cut the root lengthwise into eighths, forming long, thin wedges that fit easily into the mouth of the bottle. Pour about a cup of the shochu out into a clean glass. Carefully insert all of the wasabi pieces into the bottle. Use the reserved shochu to refill the bottle to the top, cap it off, and put it into a far corner of the refrigerator. Write today’s date on the label and forget about the bottle for exactly one week. After a week has passed, strain the finished infusion through a fine mesh sieve or cheesecloth into a pitcher. Carefully remove the wasabi from the bottle and either discard it or find some other use for it. Pour the shochu back into the bottle and continue to store it in the refrigerator for up to one month (we both know it’ll never last that long). At this point add the half yuzu peel and allow to infuse for an additional two days – it will add a clean finish and a slight citrus note to your wasabi shochu.

Tags: soju - infusion - shochu - wasabi