Great aperitif with aromatic snacks like papadums
It’s the holiday season, so I need a nice aperitif cocktail for all those Christmas dinners that were coming up! I’d been revisiting the grapefruit-cardamom combination lately (because of an open carton of grapefruit juice), one of my favorites but it didn’t immediately feel aperitif-like.
However! I realised that Aperol has kind of a grapefruit tone, and that cardamom is a major component of Chai! Excellent. From there on it was all pretty straightforward. I infused a bottle of Aperol with Chai spices (not the tea blend, just the bare spices), added Lillet Rose (not sure why, but I had an open bottle and the color matches) and then tweaked a little with some bitters.
Here’s the infusion recipe:
- 700 ml Aperol
- 18 gr Cardemom (whole pods)
- 24 gr Cinnamon (about 6 sticks)
- 5 Cloves (whole)
- 2.5 gr Star anise (about 1.5 whole stars)
- 2.5 gr Pimento
- 23 gr fresh ginger (add later!)
Quick crush everything except the cinnamon and ginger in mortar & pestle, break the cinnamon sticks, put everything in a jar shake and leave for about 24h. Not much longer (48h made it a bit bitter and less aromatic).
Strain out all the spices, then slice the fresh ginger and add it for about 45 minutes. Haven’t tried longer but this really brightened up the whole thing without making it taste of ginger.
Strain out the ginger and now you can also fine strain, perhaps through a coffee filter, the get all the last bits of dust out.
Already the Chai Aperol is great to drink, and you can just add bubbles and enjoy it. However, I found that the Lillet Rose really added extra body and richness, and that some Peychaud’s and Tiki bitters (optional) brought out the spices even more.
- 30 ml Chai Aperol
- 20 ml Lillet Rose
- 1 dash Peychaud’s bitters
- 2 drops Tiki bitters
- 50 ml (or so) Champagne or similar
Build in glass on ice and serve pre-dinner with something like cumin papadums with orange marmalade, yummy!