- Hi, welcome to the Cocktail Vlog.
I'm Steve The Bartender,
an today I'm gonna show you how to make negroni float.
So, I'm gonna break it down into a few components.
First of all, I'm gonna make a juniper ice cream.
It's gonna be a very basic juniper ice cream.
It's pretty much just slightly melted,
and I'm gonna mash some junipers through it.
If you want to, you can make your own ice cream.
Then the second part, I'm gonna make a negroni syrup
by adding gin, campari, and vermouth to sugar,
and reducing that, so it's a nice,
thick, bright red syrup.
Then, I'm gonna build the drink,
and then garnish it with some juniper berries
with the negroni syrup.
So, first up,
enough waffling, as usual.
Start off with some juniper berries.
This is a real ad hoc way of doing it,
but it's the first time I've made this float.
So, I'm just keen to see how it goes.
So, I've got, probably, just over 20 juniper berries.
(thudding)
And I'm just gonna use the mortar and pestle to smash them.
(thudding)
Probably only gonna use half that
because that's a lot of juniper.
This ice cream has been out of the freezer for a little bit.
So it's gone a little bit soft.
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Just gonna bring out three big spoonfuls.
And add the mortar and pestled
juniper berries to the ice cream.
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Almost looks like mashed malt-teez-es.
Looks kind of chocolatey.
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As you can see, this is a real ad hoc way of doing it,
but, it's gonna work, so.
So, just mix the juniper berries through the ice cream.
(spoon clacking)
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(lips smack)
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Tastes really good.
Put that back in the freezer,
and on to the next step.
Okay, onto step number two, the negroni syrup.
So this one, I'm just gonna do,
I don't need a lot of it,
so I'm only gonna measure out 45 mil. of each ingredient.
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So, 45 mil of gin.
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45 mil of sweet varmouth.
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(bottles clank)
And 45 mil, 1 1/2 ounces of campari.
(liquids slosh)
(stove beeping)
And turn on the heat.
And then add your sugar.
I'm kind of winging it, really, so,
If I've got, say 135 mils of sugar,
I'll add about 60 grams of sugar,
a couple of big tablespoons.
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That looks about right to me.
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So I just bring it to the boil,
stir it through, and make sure
you stir all that sugar through.
Once it starts boiling,
bring it to a lower heat.
And just let it reduce.
(stove beeps)
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(coughing)
That's overpowering.
(liquids sloshing)
(thudding)
(coughing)
Whoa.
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I might add a little bit more sugar.
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(stove beeps)
So I'm slowly reducing.
Just give it a taste test.
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(mixture bubbling)
Bitter sweet.
Probably more on the bitter side.
(mixture bubbling)
Might add a little pinch of salt to that, as well.
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(liquid sloshing)
Okay, so now I've reduced it a little bit,
so it's thickened up, and once it cools down,
it should, hopefully, thicken up a little bit further.
And I'll just transfer it into
a jar to let it cool down.
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(pan thuds)
So, not sure if you can see,
but it is quite an intense, red,
bittersweet-looking color.
This is gonna go really well.
And, now, onto the final step,
actually constructing the drink.
So, I do have the three ingredients here,
but it doesn't include all three of them.
Reason being, is because, obviously,
we've got the negroni syrup.
That is quite bitter,
so we're gonna lower the component of the campari.
Gonna completely remove the varmouth,
considering that we're using a soda,
which already has sugar into it.
So this particular recipe I'm following is off,
I believe, thrillist.com.
I'll also leave a link to the original recipe,
so you can check it out yourself.
And also, make sure you stick around to the en
because, obviously, I'm gonna taste the drink,
and give you feedback,
and, maybe, I could have reduced the syrup more,
or, maybe, could add the sweet varmouth back in.
Anyways, so measure out 45 mil
of your gin.
And add that to the glass.
(bottle thuds)
Then, only 15 mil, 1/2 an ounce of your campari.
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(bottle thuds)
Then, (blows) probably top it off half way,
probably about 120 mil, four ounces of your soda.
It's up to you.
The original recipe did call for blood orange soda.
I'm using a grapefruit. (soda hisses)
(soda lid clicking)
But I think both will work well.
(liquid sloshes)
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(ice rattles)
Then next, your juniper ice cream.
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Couple of scoops on top.
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(ice rattling)
(dish clanks)
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Little bit of a negroni syrup drizzled.
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Oh, smells so good.
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And serve it with a stainless steel straw.
And garnish with a few juniper berries on top.
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Thank you, Kat.
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So, it definitely doesn't look
as nice as the doctored photos
that I've seen on the Thrillist website,
and, obviously, they've used the blood orange soda,
so this does have more color.
But there's looks more intense.
There's more ice cream.
I should have made more ice cream.
But, there you have a negroni float, cheers.
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It's actually,
it's not bad.
It's
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I'm gonna pause this.
I'm gonna take a quick photo,
and then I'll come back to you
because I want to try it
with the ice cream all mixed through.
Okay, so post-photo, I did do some doctoring myself.
I added a little bit of extra campari,
about 15 mils, so I could give it
a nice redder color for the photo.
Yeah, let's give it a try,
and I'll give you some feedback.
It's starting to look a little bit messy,
as this ice cream is melting.
But that's the beauty of a float, I guess.
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It's very, very bitter, very rich,
very forward with the campari.
Obviously, I've added a little bit more.
(ice rattling)
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After stirring it, definitely improves it,
like, I think there was a little bit
of campari sitting on the bottom.
You get that creamy texture coming through.
It's really quite rich.
Would I make this again?
Once that I've tried it, probably not.
Do I recommend you try it?
If you're a hardcore negroni fan,
then, yeah, sure.
With the syrup, it does look delicious and sweet,
but it's just, it packs a punch.
It's super bitter.
So, I'd probably dial down the,
either, increase the sugar,
or dial down the campari component.
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Once it's mixed through, it's definitely a lot better.
And it's a fun, different way to enjoy negroni.
It looks a mess, but thanks for watching.
Make sure you like and subscribe.
And I'll see you soon for another cocktail video.
Cheers.
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