The Basics: Cordials
What to do with citrus you’ve peeled for garnishes or Oleo Saccharum? Why not make a Cordial!
The Reading & Drinking: Basics series is designed to explain and explore fundamental recipes and tools for making cocktails. This series looks at the often overlooked and highly necessary components for making cocktails, at home or elsewhere!
This Basics will explore Cordials, and to do that we gotta’ draw some lines in the sand because there’s an awful lot of overlap between liquors, liqueurs, and cordials (and the other cordials).
Fresh squeezed Lemon & Lime Juice.
Lemon & Lime peel Oleo Saccharums.
Like a Venn Diagram of Alcohol
It might make sense to think of anything with alcohol in it, and its relationship to everything else with alcohol in it, like a Venn diagram because everything overlaps a little. Even Liquors start out as a beer, and some – like Brandy and Cognac – as wine, before they’re distilled. But Liquor, by definition, is a distilled spirit like vodka or gin or whiskey, any of the “base” spirits that comprise most high-proof cocktails, and are usually bound by laws to be no less than 80 proof, or 40% alcohol.
Liqueurs are often lower proof than spirits, though, confusingly, not always. For example, some Curacaos are bottled at 80 proof, too, while other Curacaos are bottled at much lower proofs, sometimes all the way down to 40 or even 30 proof. The main difference is that most Liqueurs are sweet. Or, more accurately, sweetened: the life of a liqueur usually begins as a very high proof spirit, like a 150 proof neutral grain spirit or an un-aged brandy or rum, that’s infused with herbs or fruit, sometimes re-distilled to make it clear again (sometimes not), then it’s blended with sweetener and water to bring the proof down. Giffard is a brand well known for its many liqueurs.
With Cordials, it gets muddied by regional usage a little. In the United Kingdom, a cordial is a zero-proof sweetener or drink, like Rose’s Lime Juice or Anne of Green Gables Raspberry Cordial, that’s made from sugar, fruit, and fruit juices that are condensed into a syrup. In the United States, a Cordial is usually the same thing but with some spirit added, making it an extremely low-proof mixer. The addition of spirit not only adds longevity to the Cordial but it can also add deeper flavor profiles, especially if the spirit added is itself a Liqueur or an infused Liquor.
Cordially Inventive
Sour Cordial, bottled.
Cordials, like Oleo Saccharums, are good ways to get the absolute most from your fruits, especially citrus, leaving nothing but the peeled, juiceless hulls behind… and even they have a use we may dig into at a later time! For now, here are a couple Cordials you can make and some cocktails to use them in.
Sour Cordial
The Sour Cordial is just that, a low-proof sour mix you can use in a classic margarita, to make a riff on a modified daiquiri, or you can make yourself a Ligueras y Ladronas, below. First, the Sour Cordial.
6oz Lemon Juice
3oz Lime Juice
6oz Lemon Oleo
3oz Lime Oleo
4oz Dry Curacao (80 proof)
Combine the Lemon and Lime Juice with the Oleos, then add the Dry Curacao, bottle and refrigerate. This Cordial is 7% alcohol, or 14 proof.
Cocktail: Ligueras y Ladronas
Ligueras y Ladronas
1.5oz Blanco Tequila
0.5oz Mezcal
0.5oz Passion Fruit Liqueur
1.5oz Sour Cordial
(Optional:) Tajin, for rimming.
Optional: Rim your glass with tajin by running a cut lime over half the lip and rolling it in the tajin.
Add all ingredients to a tin, add ice, and shake for 10-15 seconds, then strain into a glass.
Spiced Grapefruit Cordial
Allspice and grapefruit go together like cinnamon and grapefruit, which is why all of them are combined in this cordial for a flavorful, bitter-sweet and spiced cordial. Use it to make an ever lower-proof soda by adding soda water, shake up a spiced paloma, or shake up a Lost Giant.
6oz Grapefruit Juice
1.5oz Rich Cinnamon Syrup
0.5oz Allspice Dram or Liqueur
Make the cinnamon syrup: 8oz white sugar, 4oz water, 2 broken 2-inch cinnamon sticks. Dissolve sugar in water and let simmer for 15 minutes on Med/Med-Low heat, then cover and remove from heat and allow to cool to room temperature. Strain out cinnamon.
Once its cool, combine all of the ingredients and bottle, then refrigerate. This Cordial is 1.5% alcohol, or 3 proof.
Cocktail: Lost Giant
Lost Giant
2oz Fig-Infused Blended Scotch
1oz Spiced Grapefruit Cordial
0.5oz Salers Gentian Liqueur
0.75oz Lemon Juice
2 dashes Chocolate Bitters
Infuse the scotch by adding 50g (about 2oz) of dried and quartered Black Mission Figs with 8oz of scotch and letting it infuse for 5 days; strain and reserve the figs (you can use them to further infuse things with scotch & fig flavor, like maple syrup, or you can eat them).
Add all ingredients to a tin then add ice and shake for 10-15 seconds; strain into a glass and express a grapefruit peel over the top.