The Pantry with Ryan Chetiyawardana is a monthly column in which the award-winning bartender and bar owner shares how to use unexpected ingredients in easy-to-make home cocktails.
We’re mid menu launches across the Lyan bars at the moment. Alongside visiting new restaurants with of-the-moment dishes and using peak-season produce at our special events, collaborations and to make drinks and dishes at home, I’m relishing the guidance nature provides when seeking out new flavours.
Seasonality isn’t a hard and fast rule (especially with changing climate; there are huge changes afoot that are causing all sorts of shifts for farming friends), but the way to think about what’s “peak season” is when the plants’ reproductive cycle is at its zenith. For us, this usually means that sugars and protective nutrients (aromas, colours, textural components etc) are at their peak – and this means flavour! That’s not to say the range of flavours of out-of-season produce can’t be ace – like green strawberries, picked for their texture, bright acidity and floral qualities, or the buds of brambles, blackcurrants or nettles that can be used for a fruity green pop. But when things are grown according to their natural cycle, they taste real, are more nutritious (which means more flavour), and do good for the planet. TL;DR: don’t buy strawberries and asparagus in December, they do no good for anyone.
But how then do we keep joy throughout the year? Sure, you don’t want December asparagus, but you also need brightness and flavourful joy in the more miserable months. We think about this a lot when we’re planning a new menu, from both a practical and emotional point of view. We use two main techniques to achieve this – one is transformation, and the other is preservation. The latter sounds scary, but trying simple fermentation techniques at home is simpler than you’d think, and is magical as both an experience and an application. But some transformation techniques are a great way to include the power of beautiful seasonal produce at home.
Here are two examples for you. At the moment, fresh tomatoes are singing – I had some recently for a sunny lunch that tasted sweet and bright – but this window doesn’t stick around long. But while they’re pitch perfect, they can add a wonderful melon note to a twist on a Hemingway Daiquiri. I did this for my first book, and it is perfect in the sunny weather.
The other utilises preserved tomatoes – a squidge of tomato paste (sometimes found as a small tin of tomato concentrate) which can be used throughout the year. It provides a beautiful accent to a Whisky Sour variant, to bring a hint of savouriness and hark back to sunnier times!
Bloody Earnest
Ingredients
1 or 2 peak-season cherry or pomodoro tomatoes, plus extra to garnish
60ml white rum
20ml pink or red grapefruit juice
10ml lime juice
10ml sugar syrup
5ml maraschino liqueur
Method
Crush the tomato in the bottom of a shaker, then add all the other ingredients and lots of ice. Shake very hard, then double strain into a frozen cocktail glass, and garnish with a fresh tomato
Mutti Sour
Ingredients
30ml bourbon
25ml apple brandy
25ml lemon juice
20ml tomato syrup (see below)
2 dashes Peychaud's Bitters
Tomato syrup
100g double-concentrate tomato purée
200 millilitres simple sugar syrup (two parts sugar dissolved in one part hot water)
Method
To make the tomato syrup, add tomato pureé to a dry pan and gently caramelise to release the aroma and a nice jammy note, moving it around the pan and making sure it doesn’t stick or burn. Remove from the heat and whisk into the sugar syrup
To make the cocktail, add all ingredients to a shaker and shake hard over ice, then double strain over a block of fresh ice in a chilled rocks glass.
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