I totally for­got to include in my last post, about the pig heart, the other culi­nary exper­i­ment of the evening: Black Pep­per Mar­ti­nis!  I had promised @wurmouroboros that I’d post the details.  Black Pep­per Mar­ti­nis are like reg­u­lar mar­ti­nis, but with more bite!  The key is the black pep­per syrup, which is like sim­ple syrup, and I imag­ine it can prob­a­bly be used for a num­ber of dif­fer­ent drink recipes:

INGREDIENTS

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup gran­u­lated sugar
• 1 table­spoon whole black peppercorns
• 1 table­spoon cracked black peppercorns

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Com­bine all ingre­di­ents in a small saucepan over medium-high heat, stir­ring until sugar has dissolved.
2. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to bring mix­ture to a sim­mer; cook for 20 min­utes. Remove from heat and cool to room temperature.
3. Strain the cooled syrup and refrig­er­ate it in a con­tainer with a tight fit­ting lid.

Notes: You can made this syrup with the stan­dard black pep­per­corns, known as Tel­licherry, or you could seek out more exotic pep­pers.  The spici­ness will vary depend­ing on how finely the pep­per­corns are cracked—finer will give you more heat, coarser will be more tame.  This syrup will last up to 1 month when refrig­er­ated in an air­tight container.

Then you make a reg­u­lar mar­tini and add some black pep­per syrup.  The ratios are entirely up to you, but mine went some­thing like this: 1 shot 12 Bridges Gin (from Port­land, natch), 1 shot extra dry ver­mouth, ~1 tea­spoon syrup.  You’ll have to play around with the ratios depend­ing on how strong you want your mar­tini, how hot your syrup is, and how much spici­ness you can tol­er­ate.  For me, the net result ended up fre­quently con­fus­ing my tongue.  One sip would taste like there’s not enough pep­per, but the next would feel like there is too much.  It was an odd sen­sa­tion that I look for­ward to repeat­ing in the not-too-distant future.

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Tagged as: 12bridges, black, gin, martinis, pepper, simple, simplesyrup, syrup