If you have ever hosted a cocktail party, worked at an event or you're known as the cocktail guy amongst your friends, you might have found yourself looking for drinks that are refreshing, delicious, and most of all, fast. But you wonder how far in advance you can make citrus juice so it doesn’t oxidize or if it’s even possible to juice mint (kidding, of course), and then you hear somebody in the distance say he heard egg white makes a really nice foam on drinks. The idea of working with eggs while outside in the heat gives you the chills, but you want to show them how good a whiskey sour is. “There has got to be a better way!” - you think to yourself, and there is: today I’ll show you how to pre-batch sours.
Using ingredients like Mint Cordial, Super Juice and Super Syrup, you’ll be able to make Mojitos, Margaritas, Whiskey Sours (and many other sours, but I’ll show you these three today) in no time and even prepare them a week ahead - including the silky texture, the nice foam and all that. Each batch will be made to be bottled in 700 ml bottles, which is just under 24 oz, and I’ll be weighing the ingredients in grams, to get the ratios just right, but I’ll give you volumetric measurements as well. Also, to make it easier to scale up or down as you wish, I’ve added a Pre-batched Cocktail Calculator to my website, where you simply put in the total volume you’re going for and you get the amounts you’ll need to mix together.
Let’s start off with the Mojito using the Clarified Lime & Mint Cordial, which will take care of the sweet, sour, and herbal components of this delicious drink. The general preparation for this cordial includes blanching the mint, placing it in a blender with lime juice, lime peels, water, sugar and citric & malic acids. After blending and filtering, the mixture is clarified with agar-agar, as clarifying just the cordial instead of the whole cocktail has the added benefit of keeping the body and flavor of the spirit intact. To find a more detailed step-by-step make sure to check out my post on Clear MOJITO with CLARIFIED Lime & Mint Cordial, but once you have that you're ready to pre-batch some Mojitos.
Pre-batched Mojito
● 400g (420mL/14oz) 41% ABV rum (I used Plantation 3 stars)
● 320g (280mL/9.5oz) lime & mint cordial
● 1.3g (20 drops) saline solution
To make this drink, add the ingredients to a bottle and give it a few turns to mix the ingredients, add a label if you wish, place it in the fridge and you’re good to go. The cordial allows you to skip scooping the sugar, measuring out of the syrup, juicing the lime, and muddling the mint and, just like in cooking, the salt in the saline solution will enhance the flavors. Finally, for the original Clear Mojito I used Havana Club 3y, but Plantation 3 stars is a great option too (you can grab the bottles I’m using at curiada.com). All you’ll have to do at the party now is top it up with soda and garnish it.
We’re on to pre-batched cocktail number 2: the Margarita.
Pre-batched Margarita
● 312g (332mL) 40% ABV Tequila Avion
● 174g (166mL) Cointreau
● 40g (37mL) agave syrup
● 172g (166mL) lime Super Juice
● 1.3g (20 drops) saline solution
Same as before, add the ingredients to a bottle, turn it, add a label, and you’re done. The benefit of using lime is that it won’t oxidize, which is usually the main pitfall of pre-batching sours. The drink follows a 2:1:1 ratio, plus a touch of agave syrup, but here the scale comes in handy, as to fill the 700 ml bottle the measurements in ounces get out of control. For example, we’re adding 332 ml, or 312 g of tequila at 40% ABV, which is 11 and 1/5th of an ounce, if it helps.
And now, for the big one - how do you pre-batch a cocktail that needs egg white? If you’ve read my latest blog you know the answer: Super Syrup. It combines the sweetener and the foaming agent, with methyl cellulose, gum arabic and xanthan gum providing everything you’ll need for the perfect texture and appearance of the King of Sours.
Pre-batched whiskey sour
● 370g (400mL) 45% ABV bourbon
● 192g (150mL) Super Syrup
● 154g (150mL) lemon Super Juice
● 1.3g (20 drops) saline solution
Here you’ll also add the ingredients to a bottle, but make sure to turn gently, so you mix everything but don’t froth it up too much already. Label, if you want, and that’s it. The ingredients sound complicated but it’s pretty easy to make, especially when you see how good of a vegan alternative Super Syrup really is.
We have all three bottled cocktails, but they’re not ready to drink just yet. Unlike when you pre-batch a stirred cocktail it’s not enough to just add water, chill it in the freezer and pour it over ice. Mojitos need soda water and for Margarita & Whiskey Sour we want the airy texture you get from a well-shaken sour cocktail (plus, shaking a cocktail is what people expect to see when you’re making them a drink). Let’s start with the Mojito.
Mojito
● 100mL (3.33oz) pre-batched mojito mix
● 75mL (2.5oz) soda
Pour the soda, followed by the mojito mix into a chilled glass filled with ice and gently turn with a bar spoon. Garnish with a mint sprig and a lime wedge, to hint what flavors the drinker can expect from this clear looking cocktail. Now moving onto the Margarita.
Margarita
● 100mL (3.33oz) pre-batched margarita mix
Into a shaker add the pre-batched margarita mix and ice, then shake like everyone’s watching. Double strain into a coupe glass, rimmed on one side with salt. There is no need for an extra garnish as lime super juice is aromatic enough and the salt provides a visual texture as well. Finally, you’ll find the Whiskey Sour is just as simple to measure as the Margarita.
Whiskey Sour
● 100mL (3.33oz) pre-batched whiskey sour mix
Add the pre-batched cocktail into a shaker, filled with ice and we’ll do a reverse dry shake - methyl cellulose in the super syrup foams up nice when it’s chilled first, so the second shake, after we dump the ice, will provide the thick foam we want to see on the whiskey sour. Double strain into a lowball glass filled with ice and garnish with a cocktail cherry.
And just like that, you have 3 refreshing summer drinks, without a bunch of sad looking mint, spent citrus husks or egg yolks and shells to clean up. You can of course apply these recipes for other sour cocktails too, like the Clover Club, Southside, Pisco Sour, Sidecar, Gin Fizz, you name it. Now you could watch me taste all three of these cocktails and I'd tell you that they taste just as delicious as the ones I make from scratch, but the best use for pre-batched cocktails is to share them with friends. So check out the video down below to join Robi, Sašo and myself to toast to making nearly 100 episodes of Cocktail Time with some pre-batched cocktails of your own. Cheers!
Get the ingredients I used for Super Syrup:
● Methylcellulose: https://geni.us/8BIo
● Gum Arabic: https://geni.us/btoy
● Xanthan Gum: https://geni.us/DUJM5f
To make it easier for you to try these recipes you can grab the bottles from my collection at CURIADA.
By buying through the affiliate links you’re also helping out the Cocktail Time channel with a small commission (at no additional cost to you). Cheers!