- This is How To Drink, the show about making cocktails
and how to drink them.
I'm Greg and I have never been a professional bartender.
I've never even had a job in a bar.
I don't worry too much about precision and technique
because at the end of the day, if a drink you like
is in the glass, you did it right.
(jazzy music)
Let's get going.
This is the Game of Thrones edition of How To Drink.
One of my favorite shows on TV right now
is Game of Thrones, I don't know if I like it
quite as much as Newhart
but, always in a doozy, I like it a lot.
I think some of the most interesting characters
in the books and the show are the Warlocks of Karth, okay.
We don't know what they're up to.
We don't know if they're working for the others.
(fast forwards)
We know that they drink Shade of the Evening
which is made from the leaves of the trees
that grow around the House of the Undying
and it stains their lips blue and maybe it gives them
magical powers.
I don't know.
I thought that was a pretty cool idea for a cocktail
so we're gonna try to make that up right now,
it's How To Drink original, kind of advanced cocktail.
We're gonna use, Batavia Arrack.
We're going to use Maurin Quina,
we're going to use gum syrup,
we're going to use some Demerara syrup, we're going to do
an absinthe rinse and sage, we're gonna use sage too.
In the books, Shade of the Evening is described
as tasting like a lot of things, all things
and no things at the same time, rotting flesh,
and baking apples and just every flavor.
We're gonna try to do that but with as minimum
rotting flesh flavor as we could possibly get away with.
I don't have those trees that grow around
the House of Undying, 'cause they don't exist.
I do have this which is butterfly pea blossoms,
they're dried, these are used in I think Thailand primarily
to color various drinks.
I first found out about these, because I was interested
in the history of blue curacao, but what is that?
Is that just something we came up with in the 60s?
We started putting Selsun Blue into the curacao?
No, actually blue curacao goes back to the 16 or 1700's
they had these flowers and said, hey,
everything's better with blue in it.
And you can do that, you can take curacao or other spirits
and steep these in there for a couple days
and you will end up with something very nice
and electric blue.
Did I mention the liquid nitrogen?
Did I not mention the liquid nitrogen?
We're gonna also need some liquid nitrogen
and we're gonna do a technique
that David Arnold came up with called nitro-muddling
and we're gonna nitro-muddle some
of these butterfly pea blossoms
and some fresh sage leaves together.
Without further ado let's make Shade of the Evening.
And we'll throw one, two, five sage leaves
into my short tin.
By nitro-muddling this, what's gonna happen is one,
these are gonna get brittle and pulverized into dust
and two, because it'll be
in a completely oxygen devoid environment
because it'll be coated in liquid nitrogen
it can't oxidize, our herbs won't brown
the flavors won't dull, it will be the sharpest
most present sage flavor, we should be able
to ever extract from the sage leaves.
We're also going to throw in a good number
of these blossom flowers and I'm not gonna lie
that's mostly for effect, that's primarily
to get a color that we're looking for out of this drink.
Now I'm gonna throw some liquid nitrogen in there
and this is gonna make me look like a mad scientist.
Okay, so a little liquid nitrogen here.
Goes right into, little liquid nitrogen,
straight into your mixing tin.
Not something I ever thought I was going to say before.
It's very easy to just muddle this.
All of the cells are just being pulverized and broken open
and cryogenically shattered right now.
And I think that's about good.
(clangs)
That looks very serious.
I want to put in two ounces of Batavia Arrack.
Oh yeah, that happens.
I want to put in a half an ounce of Maurin Quina.
I'm gonna put in a half an ounce of Demerara syrup.
Which is just simple syrup made with Demerara sugar.
I am going to put in a half an ounce of gum syrup.
And we're doing that because we want this to be thick
in the books it's described as being really thick,
viscous drink, almost like old blood or something.
While that's happening, I'm gonna pour
a little absinthe into my glass.
And I'm gonna throw in another splash of liquid nitrogen
in there, mostly because I have it
and it's gonna look really cool.
And it does.
At this point we're ready to shake.
Ready to pour this now, double strain this drink.
Nitro-muddling leaves really fine pulverized bits
of herbs and I honestly wish I had a finer strainer
than this, but I don't.
I'm gonna garnish that with a single sage leaf.
And I'm gonna clap it between my hands
to let it express some of it's oils,
I'm just gonna float it right in the middle there,
that's a drink I'm gonna call Shade of the Evening.
As drunk by the Warlocks of Karth in Game of Thrones.
Let's see how it came out.
Oh my god that's really good.
That's a really cool evolution.
You get this like piney note right up front,
which is a little bit of the Quina and the Batavia Arrack.
Its sweet, its a very sweet drink, I don't know
that I would ever want a drink sweeter than this
but this is not too sweet, it's just on the edge
I would say it's accurate to the description
of how sweet it is in the book, the sweetness is tempered
by the bitterness that you get from Quina
and from the Batavia Arrack, which is pretty strong stuff
and it has a lot of funk to it and then the sage actually,
you really taste the sage, I don't know
if it's just from nitro-muddling it or what
but you get flavors out of it that are just
so much more present, it comes in after, it's like you sip,
you taste, you taste and then
(claps)
you get hit with sage.
I think it's a really neat drink.
It evolves, it tastes like a lot of different things
at once.
Looks about the right color, it's highly suspicious
and it's good.
It's a really cool drink.
Oh that's a good drink.
I like any drink where you're drinking it, drinking it
and you sip it and you taste it and then it's like
(smacks)
pops up into your nose
and it gives you a whole different chapter
in the drink, it has like, it opens up a different flavor
and this drink does that.
There it is,
Shade of the Evening inspired by Game of Thrones
as drank by the Warlocks of Karth, very serious dudes.
Good show, good books, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do
but I think it's about to start so I don't have time
to drink that at the moment, I'm gonna save that for later.
So I'll just put it on ice and
perfect.
That'll keep nicely
and we'll just put that under glass there.
Beautiful, this is How To Drink a show
about making cocktails and how to drink them.
I hope you liked the show and if you do,
I hope you subscribe.
I try to respond to all of your comments,
sometimes I'm better about that then others,
if I didn't get right back to you, I'm very sorry.
This week we did something from Game of Thrones.
We're gonna do a little bit more of that I think.
I'll see you next week with another cocktail.
(growls)