Three-Part Harmony

I went into this aiming for elegant simplicity with the concept of sprezzatura in mind, but I couldn’t add this to the Spritzzatura series. The house grain syrup is made with rye, corn, and barley, with the same ratio as the mash bill of the straight rye. I tried the syrup two ways. The first was to see if I could successfully malt the grain at home (I could), but the second and one I used in the submission used easily findable USA-grown grains that were ready to brew from the brew supply. After cooking the grains, I modified the pH slightly with citric acid and then added an enzyme solution to help with starch conversion. The resulting liquid went through a 100-micron super bag where the unconverted starch/denatured proteins from the grain acted as a sieve to clarify the liquid. I then reduced it to 1/4 the volume over high heat to catch some slight caramelization on the sides of the pot. A small amount of starch left over added some body to the syrup, which was spicy from the rye, with a round sweetness from the corn, depth from the barley, and complexity and bitterness from the proteins and flavors in the husks of the grain. It might take you one or two tries, but this is a reliable process.

Two liquids that required much work, history, and techniques to create resulted in the most old-fashioned-est old-fashioned around.

Recipe

2.0 oz Elijah Craig Straight Rye

0.25 oz homemade 3-Grain Syrup

1x orange swath

Drink Assembly

Chill Double Rocks glass by sticking it in the freezer. Fill a mixing glass with ice. Add in the rye and your syrup. Stir down until just under-diluted. Pull glass from the freezer and put a big cube in it. Strain the cocktail into a glass. Heavily express your orange swath and discard (you can save these and make an olio or candy them later when you have enough; I keep them in a ziplock in my freezer).

Note: This is a great freezer or fridge cocktail, take 750 mL bottle of EC Straight Rye, pour yourself a shot and take it, add 3 oz of your homemade 3-grain syrup. It’s not a perfect scaling (a 750mL has ~25.36 oz in it) but maybe just pour yourself a heavy shot then.