Experimenting with non alcoholic cocktails. A recipe with matcha green tea
What is the Tea Squirrel up to? Testing out tea-based mocktail recipes to see if they meet my tea-centric expectations, obviously. If there’s tea in it, I want to taste it. Don’t you? Is the author of the recipe a tea drinker? Are they using tea because they believe in the potential of tea as an ingredient or because they need to use just another buzzword? So many questions, only one way to find out. Trying it out myself.
I came across another recipe by Julia Bainbridge, the author of Good Drinks, a recipe book on non alcoholic drinks. In my previous post, I tried her black tea based mocktail, A little bit Russian. This time around I gave her Zero Proof Basil-Matcha Fizz a try.
Experimenting with non alcoholic cocktails. A recipe with matcha green tea. The Tea Squirrel
So here’s what happened. First and foremost, the original recipe blew my mind. This is one of those drinks I could just have by the gallon, it’s addictive and (thank goodness) non alcoholic. The ingredients work so harmoniously together, it’s fantastic. But if I were the person who is nit-picking (it’s me, hi, I’m the nitpicker, it’s me), I’d say that the matcha flavor gets a bit lost in the end. And because I’m here to bring tea flavor to the foreground, I adapted the original recipe.
Julia makes a cold-processed syrup by blending sugar, water, basil leaves and matcha without heating it. I had never made a syrup this way and I love how vibrant the flavor turned out to be. But I increased the matcha in the syrup by ½ teaspoon.
Experimenting with non alcoholic cocktails. A recipe with matcha green tea. The Tea Squirrel
Julia doesn’t add any matcha to the final drink but I did and it works wonders to amplify the matcha flavor. I added ½ teaspoon of matcha and 1 oz filtered water, which I subtracted from the total 3 oz of soda water that are used to top the drink before serving. I also find that using an immersion blender before shaking the mixture with ice is key to a silky smooth result because full-fat coconut milk needs extra effort to be emulsified with the rest of the ingredients. And also to evenly distribute the extra matcha powder.
After countless rounds of testing, here’s my adaptation of the Zero Proof Basil-Matcha Fizz by Julia Bainbridge.
For the Basil-Matcha Syrup
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup loosely packed fresh basil leaves
3/4 cup water
2 teaspoons matcha, sifted
For the drink
1 ounce basil-matcha syrup
1 ounce well-shaken full-fat coconut milk
3/4 ounce freshly squeezed lime juice
1 ounce filtered water
1/2 teaspoon matcha, sifted
2 ounces soda water
Matcha powder, for garnish
Make the basil-matcha syrup: In a small pitcher, combine the sugar, basil leaves, water and matcha and blend with an immersion blender on high until smooth and bright green and the sugar has dissolved. Strain through a fine mesh strainer, discard the solids and refrigerate until completely cool, about 15 minutes.
Make the drink: Fill a rocks glass with ice. In a small pitcher, combine the syrup, coconut milk, matcha, filtered water and lime juice and blend on high until smooth and frothy. Pour into a cocktail shaker, fill with ice, seal the shaker and shake just to combine, about 5 seconds. Double-strain into the ice-filled glass and top with the soda water. (This will produce foam, so pour slowly.) To garnish, sift the matcha powder on top and serve.
Experimenting with non alcoholic cocktails. A recipe with matcha green tea. The Tea Squirrel
Would you try this tea mocktail?
