What’s shakin, cocktail fans?
Welcome back to another episode of the Modern Bar Cart Podcast!
This time around, we talk with Brittany and Joe from Wight Tea Co. This brother-sister duo give us a delicious crash course on in the world of all things steeped and steamy.
In this conversation with Brittany and Joe Wight, we cover a broad range of tea-related topics, including:
This week’s featured cocktail is…PUNCH. I know, it’s more of a category than a cocktail, but I want to take just a minute here to review exactly how easy it is to make a great, tea-based punch in the classic style.
Instead of a recipe, we’re going to offer a ratio, and this is the golden rule we follow with very minimal divergence when we’re putting together a punch for friends and family. The ratio is 4:2:1:1 Water (or tea, in this case) to Spirits, to Sugar, to Citrus. We’ll unpack that ratio in a second, but first, here’s the most important thing to keep in mind.
When you’re dealing with a ratio instead of a set measurement, you need to pick your anchor point. What’s going to be the one ingredient that you want to set as the standard that everything else must react to?
In this case, we find it easy to use a standard, 750ml (or 25 oz) bottle of spirits as your anchor. That way, you go to the store, pick up your spirit, and you know all you gotta do is dump that sucker without measuring.
So, if the “2” in the 4:2:1:1 ratio is 25 oz, then you know you’ll need 50 oz of tea…which is literally just 50 oz of water with the tea of your choice steeped in it. And then 12-13 oz of both citrus juice and a simple syrup. If you’re worried it won’t be sweet enough, go with a richer simple syrup…but most of the time, regular strength simple syrup is just fine.
The last element in the punch equation is always spice. Traditionally, grated nutmeg is what’s called for, and that’s always a good call. But we’ve often found great applications for our cocktail bitters in these situations, since they’re essentially a highly curated profile of various herbs and spices.
For more information on batching cocktails like this, check out Episode 16 on Batched Cocktails, which has a whole bunch of great thoughts on punch and other large format drinks.
In this episode, we cover a lot of tea-based tips and tricks – everything from how to select a high quality to brewing and steeping best-practices. Here are some of the highlights:
There is some debate as to what qualifies as a “Tea”.” Some people think it’s only those beverages brewed from black, green, or white tea leaves. But others are more open-minded to incorporating other herbs and spices into the mix. Either way, the world of tea is a vast one, but here are some of the larger categories:
Most tea you get at the supermarket is just the dry, stale dust of whole tea leaves that has been degraded by prolonged exposure to air and/or light. To select a high-quality loose leaf tea, be sure to:
Water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees celcius). However, you don’t want to put boiling water on your tea leaves unless it’s an herbal tisane. Instead, you want the water to be somewhere around 170-180 degrees Fahrenheit, which is just when the bubbles are starting to form and rise to the surface in your kettle or pot.
Be sure to use good quality water when brewing your tea, and pay attention to steep time. The longer you steep, the stronger (and possibly more astringent) the tea will become.
We talk about a bunch of excellent tea cocktails during this episode, but perhaps the most iconic one is the hot toddy. Here’s how to make one:
