On new years day my brothers and I made ginger champagne, as we have in years past. In 2013 I had the bright idea (inspired by this recipe) to use the “waste” from the brewing, i.e. the ginger peel and lemon zest, in an infusion. That turned out to be a a tasty success and we decided to do another infusion this year. I happened to have a large amount of brandy lying around so we decided to experiment with that. This recipe is still basically a riff on that original boozed and infused recipe, but ratcheted way up since we have a lot more leftovers to go around now that we’re making 5 gallon batches of champagne.
Ingredients
- 0.6 lbs ginger peel (or just ginger if you’re starting from scratch)
- zest from 5 lemons
- 1.5 liters brandy
- leftover boiled ginger from making champagne (optional)
- simple syrup or agave to taste (optional)
After two weeks I stained and tested the infusion. Depending on how much ginger you put in you may want to let it sit longer. It was good and gingery but on the sweet side. If you’re starting from scratch you won’t have this problem, you’ll probably want to add simple syrup or agave to taste.
Ginger Brandy Manhattan
2 oz ginger brandy
1 oz dry vermouth
Dash of bitters
Lemon twist
The vermouth and bitters balance out the sweetness of the brandy quite nicely making for a smooth and spicy variation on the classic Manhattan.
A Stranger's Sojourn 