Drinkies: Pear Fizz

Supper Club member Greg wowed us at the recent French Cooking Techniques dinner with this beautiful and tasty cocktail, the Pear Fizz. 


He not only developed the recipe but also wrote the following beautifully informative description. Thanks, Greg!

---

---

If you look at old cocktail recipe books, you'll often see cocktails grouped together in broad categories such as "fix", "fizz", "collins" and "sour." This group of cocktails shares a base of a sour agent such as lemon or lime juice with a sweetener to counterbalance the sour. Add your favorite liquor and you have the sweet-sour-strong triumvirate common to these cocktails. The trick, of course, is to balance these three characteristics, and jazz them up with other additions to enhance the sensory appeal.

This pear fizz hits a number of sensory notes: The fragrant pear essence hits your nose as you sip. The vanilla balsamic vinegar colors the rim of the martini glass, and if you apply it heavily, drips down the side of the glass creating a slightly sticky edge to the glass. The mousse on top adds visual appeal, and the small amount of limeade adds a bit of tingle on your tongue. St. Germain adds sweetness and depth of flavor without being cloying.

---

Pear Fizz
recipe by Greg Beckett

Ingredients:

1 oz pear vodka

1 oz plain vodka

½ oz St. Germain liqueur

½ oz Trader Joe’s limeade

1 tsp reconstituted egg white*

¼ oz ginger syrup**

Vanilla-balsamic vinegar, for the rim of the glass ***

Pear(s) for batonnets/garnishes


Notes on ingredients: 

* The egg white serves two important roles: It adds a creamy mouthfeel and creates a lovely white mousse that floats on top of the liquid in your cocktail glass. If you are squeamish about using fresh egg white, either use pasteurized liquid egg whites (sold in cartons in the grocery store) or reconstitute dried egg whites (such as Deb-El brand) that you might have in your pantry for baking. Don't beat the egg white before adding it; you want the shaking action of the cocktail to create the bubbles.  

** Ginger syrup is made by adding some slices of fresh ginger to a simple syrup preparation while it simmers and then letting it steep for a few hours as it cools. Strain out the ginger slices when you've reached the desired strength and store flavored syrup in the refrigerator. 

*** Fustini's vanilla balsamic vinegar is sold at their stores in Michigan and also online. You could probably mix your own using high-quality balsamic and real vanilla extract. 

Directions:

• Squeeze lemon and reserve a small amount of the juice. Cut pears into long sticks (batonnets) to serve as garnish. Toss pear batonnets with the reserved lemon juice to prevent browning.
  

• Pour a small amount of vanilla balsamic vinegar into a small shallow bowl. Invert martini glass into the liquid, tilting the dish to pool the liquid to one side and rotating the martini glass rim to run the edge through the liquid pool. Once you've completed the rotation, gently press the glass against the bowl and twirl it a bit more to coax excess liquid off the glass edge and back into the bowl. If you leave a lot of liquid on the rim, it will drip down a bit and create a nice "legs" effect. To preserve just a band of vinegar along the rim, continue twirling and touching until you've removed more vinegar. Turn the glass back upright and set aside. It will dry and become slightly sticky.
  

• Combine vodkas, liqueur, limeade, juice, egg white and syrup with crushed ice in a metal cocktail shaker. Shake until container is too cold to handle. Pour into prepared cocktail glass and garnish with batonnet.
  

Note on preparation: The recipe works best in smaller quantities - just one or two cocktails at a time in the shaker to get the best creamy mousse effect to top each cocktail. And a metal cocktail shaker works better than glass for this recipe.

---