To make a Penichillin, the trick is to convert the original unfrozen Penicillin into a frozen format.
When I first started this newsletter, I warned you that I’d ask you to think a lot about ice. Honestly, we’ve probably talked about ice somewhat less than I initially anticipated.
But the thing about frozen drinks is that because they are blended with ice, they are much, much more diluted than a standard stirred or shaken cocktail.
Think about how you’d make a standard shaken cocktail like a Daiquiri or a Margarita: You can successfully chill and dilute one by shaking the drink with three to five one-ish inch ice cubes. (I typically use
1.25” Tovolo silicone mold cubes.) The shake will, of course, transfer some of the ice to the drink as cold water.
But even if you shake hard and long, you’re still going to have a fair bit of ice left in the shaker after you strain out the cocktail. Most of the ice stays in the shaker — not in the drink.
A frozen blended drink, in contrast, incorporates all of the ice into the drink. And a common amount of ice to use is something like six to eight one-ish inch cubes, all of which end up incorporated into the drink.
That delivers a nice icy chill and that delightful frozen-drink slushy texture. But because it’s all blended together for slushy-like consumption, you’re also effectively giving the drink a
lot more dilution.
And what that means is that you’re going to have to change the sweet/sour balance of the cocktail to stand up to the incorporation of all that ice. In particular, you’re going to have to increase the amount of sweetener relative to what you’d ordinarily use.
We saw this effect with
last week’s Frozen Banana Daiquiri, which included a full ounce of banana liqueur, which is sweetened enough that it nearly functions as a banana syrup, as well as some rich simple syrup. We also saw this effect with
the Frozen Margaritas we looked at last year: The basic version calls on a 1 ½ ounce portion of agave syrup, as well as 1 ½ ounce of Cointreau.
So for a Penichillin, we’re going to need to amp up the volume of sweetener, relative to a shaken Penicillin, in order to account for the increase in ice and dilution.
In a typical unfrozen Penicillin, the sweet portion is a combined ¾ ounce volume, split equally between honey syrup and ginger syrup.
For the frozen version, after multiple experiments, I ended up increasing that to a total of 1 ¼ ounces — with ¾ ounce 3:1 honey syrup and ½ ounce ginger syrup.
With the added dilution from blending, it retains basically the same taste profile and balance, which is what I was going for.
Getting to the (Ginger) Root of the Issue
The other thing I wanted from the frozen Penichillin was to get a strong kick of ginger into this cocktail from homemade ginger syrup.
Like I said earlier, much of the magic of the original drink comes from the use of fresh ginger juice, pressed straight from the root and sweetened into a syrup.
Several of the recipes you can find online call for a combined honey-ginger syrup, which is basically an infusion of ginger root into honey syrup. This doesn’t taste bad, and admittedly, it’s easier to make. But the ginger comes across as somewhat milder than with fresh ginger juice. Another method was to incorporate a sort of chopped/blended ginger paste into the drink — but at that point, why not just make sweetened ginger juice, like the original Penicillin?
I published a detailed recipe and guide to making ginger syrup back in November 2021.
For a step-by-step breakdown with photos, you should refer to that.
But the basic idea is this: Put a bunch of ginger root in a blender and blend it on high until it’s almost a paste. Then scrape out the ginger paste and press it through a fine mesh strainer, releasing the juice. Then combine the juice with sugar to sweeten it.
This does require a decent blender and a strainer of some sort. For the strainer I typically use a chinois strainer —
a large conical fine mesh strainer on a stand — with a pestle for pressing the ginger paste.
But last week, as I was making this drink, I found myself working in an unfamiliar kitchen, with unfamiliar tools.
There was a serviceable blender, though it didn’t attack the ginger root with quite the same gusto as the blender I use at home. And there was no chinois and no pestle.
However, I did manage to find a mesh strainer and a wooden spoon. So I took the not-quite-as-well-blended ginger root and just pressed it though the metal mesh — and it worked.
Yes, it was a little less effective than the tools I use at home — I suspect I managed to extract less juice overall than I would have from the same amount of ginger root.
But the process still only took about 10 minutes from beginning to end, and since I wasn’t trying to make drinks for a large group, there was no real issue with the smaller volume.
The lesson here is that with a bit of effort and creativity, you can make this with fairly basic kitchen equipment. And if you find yourself in an unfamiliar kitchen, don’t give up!
In the end, you’ll have delicious ginger syrup that you can use to make both an original Penicillin
and a frozen Penichillin.
Salt and Spice and Everything Nice
I did add one final ingredient to the frozen version of this drink — salt or saline solution. It’s not strictly necessary, but it helps pull out the flavors, giving the drink a bit more pop and ensuring that the ingredients don’t get lost in the blend. As home, as I have noted before, I typically use a 20 percent saline solution from an eye dropper bottle for precision — but while away, I just used a pinch of salt.
The result is a delicious, lightly briny, spicy-sweet, icy cold, sophisticated and delicious scotch cocktail that very much does not scream Vegas pool bar — but does, in fact, taste better when consumed by a large body of water.
Penichillin
INSTRUCTIONS
- Combine all ingredients except peaty scotch in a blender.
- Blend on high until smooth.
- Pour blended contents into a rocks glass or small tumbler.
- Drizzle peated scotch on top.
- Drink through a straw.
One final note for those who want to further mod this cocktail: At times I’ve suggested that
peaty scotch and smoky mezcal are often (not always) substitutable.
That’s true with this drink: If you don’t have a big peaty scotch to drizzle on top of the cocktail, you can produce a similar effect with a moderately smoky mezcal, like Del Maguey Vida.
*20 Percent Saline Solution: Combine four parts water and one part salt, by volume, in a small saucepan. Heat on medium to medium low. Do not let boil. Stir to integrate until there is no salt sludge left on the bottom of the pan. Bottle in an eye dropper, store on the counter. Keeps for many months.
**3:1 Honey Syrup: Combine three parts honey with one part water, by volume. Whisk to integrate for about 30 seconds to a minute, until fully combined. Bottle and store in the refrigerator.