welcome friends welcome to another episode of the pop show and on the
episode where we made celery soda I had a bunch of people ask me if I'd ever had
cucumber soda and I have had cucumber soda and the thing about cucumber soda
that I kind of don't like is that it's overpowered with mint usually they put
mint in it or basil I think basil is better than mint for my
own personal flavor so I thought what can I do to use cucumber and sort of
make it something that I want to drink in fact to make it something that I want
to drink and one of the things that I really like cucumber in is gin and
there's a particular gene called Hendrix that we have gone out with the people
from Hendrix several nights where they bring out all of the flavonoids that
they used that they infuse into the gin and I've sort of taken a riff on that
with what I'm going to do here so the first up is to juice some cucumbers
okay so I think two cucumbers gives us enough juice now over here on this side
is a ton of cucumber pulp and if you want to use that cucumber pulp in
something I would suggest making Tatsuki we've got our recipe somewhere I'll link
to it somewhere around us how to make the Satsuki sauce and I'm sure I'm
saying that wrong but but you know I'm I'm not Greek so okay so I'm gonna turn
the heat on to this pot I've put the juice in and I'm gonna turn the heat on
to sort of medium medium-high we want to bring this up to almost the boiling
point but not quite to a boil well that's coming up to temperature
we're going to deal with the other spices that we're going to put in here
now modeling this after sort of the flavor profile of Hendrick's Gin so
obviously first in our juniper berries and everybody should know what a juniper
berry is it's from the juniper tree mostly in the northern hemisphere fairly
easy to get you'll see it everywhere next up our KU Bev peppers now khubaib
peppers are related to black pepper they're sort of the same they're from
the same region but they have a slightly different flavor than black pepper and
Hendrix uses them in their concoction and lastly this is a long pepper now
long pepper is also related to black pepper again slightly different flavor
slightly different oil compounds but I think it'll go quite well with the
cucumber so I'm gonna put that in now I've put them into a small mortar and
pestle and I just want to bruise them or break them up a little bit I don't
really want to grind them fine I want to be able to strain out the parts later so
this is just a matter of breaking them up to help release some of the oils and
flavors okay so we're gonna get this into the pot I'm just going to get a
spoon this is coming up to temperature nicely and so you don't really want to
boil it you just want to heat it up so that we can steep these flavors together
so just scrape that in and we'll give it a stir and so you just want to stir it
every once in a while as it's at a bare simmer just below the boiling point and
after it's been there for a couple minutes move it off the heat and just
let it steep for about 20 okay so this is steep long enough I have
a fine fine mesh strainer and I just want to strain out the solids get rid of
all the little pieces of pepper and anything else that might be in there
okay there we go now I'm going to pour that back into a pot and I'm gonna bring
this up to just a bow to boil now as this comes up to a boil I'm gonna stir
in the sugar and we just want to heat this until the sugar is fully dissolved
and we have a nice even syrup okay fully dissolved so I'm gonna put this into
this glass jug measuring cup see if I can do it without spilling then I'm
gonna stick this in the fridge and let it chill completely before we give it a
taste test I also have some cleanup to do
oh no it's it's got green bloody bit something does have green floaty bits on
the top give a stir give a stir let's give it a taste so I didn't add any
citric acid to this yet because I want to add in acid phosphate at the end and
see what that does for the flavor all right so the smell is not particularly
inviting okay I'm gonna add acid phosphate into this one it's sweet it is
sweet isn't it yeah and I didn't put that much sugar in
it I didn't put that much sugar is in the in the syrup and yet it's got a
weird kind of kind of taste to it you say weird you like it mm-hmm
there you go everybody's different right everybody's different okay now taste
that with the acid phosphate it doesn't look very enticing around the top of the
glass does it told you mind has lots of floaty things okay the acid phosphate
helps even at that flavor yeah a lot as per usual it fills it in evens it out I
don't know that I would go for this one no I think the celery one was for me was
much more appealing as a okay ah I like traditional I like this one cuz it
tastes like melon I'll see I'm not a big melon fan so
there you go yeah maybe that's a watermelon so I like I like melon it
tastes like melon I think our cucumbers a melon they're not a squash are they I
will put up the squash I will put up on the screen with her military squash who
knows they grow on a vine and I gotta squash yeah yeah since we're here oh
your freshly gonna add the jam let's put a shot of gin in or
measure yeah I'm not much of a bartender am i no that changed the flavor as it
would see oh it still has that I for me it still has that finished flavor that I
think is kind of pasty I like that it still tastes like melon it still tastes
like melon it tastes like melon with gin now I think Alvin who is the Hendrick's
Gin Canadian representative yeah should get in touch Alvin I think this is a
winner I think you want this one a little bit of tweaking I think a little
bit more tweaking I like this very much okay that's good maybe a little bit more
pepper I might put a little more cubeb in it just to sort of bottom it out a
little bit you may be on your own though drinking it okay I'll have the gin with
something else thank you so cucumber soda pop it's a thing it is a thing it's
a thing and there it is three to that thanks for stopping by see you again
soon
you