Cocktail: Sleepy In Seattle Again
Hello, Levi here… On Saturday March 25th, I wanted to make a cocktail with Mount Gay Rum. They’re hosting a little competition, so that was the inspiration. I didn’t realize it would lead me down a long and nostalgic road. Pealing banana skins and learning more about gums. I’m so happy I let the rum be my muse yesterday. Here is a little ‘night cap recap.’
I’d be thrilled to continue to share this drink to y’all. I’ll be playing around more with our ‘food waste’ and leveraging my past 7 years at Kerry Ingredients, where I learned so many culinary techniques. Sometime soon I hope to write a full blog post about our systems to prevent food/energy/labor waste. We’ll see when I get the time.
Lady the corgi feeling a little sleepy herself, modeling behind a Mount Gay Rum cocktail
Sleepy In Seattle Again
2oz Mount Gay Rum Eclipse
1oz (2tbsp) Greek yogurt
0.5oz banana phloem bundle syrup
0.25oz lemon juice
0.5oz orange juice
Shake and strain into a small rocks glass with ice
Garnish with 3 skewered banana medallions (coins) fanned out and a very light dusting of mixed granola, light cinnamon dusting
This cocktail was designed around the flavor profiles of Mount Gay
Story of the drink:
I’ve served Mount Gay Rum for 3 years now as a bartender. When I taste it I go to the honey and nutty granola like flavors. That taste and sip takes me back to the flavor of granola, with nice dried fruits mixed in. This impression of flavor is where the inspiration started for the recipe below.
I’m originally from the Seattle area and live in Wisconsin now. I spent far too much time in cafes. Working as a barista for 10 years straight, studying for school in them, meeting up with friends. What kept me in cafes was the people, the smells of coffee and fresh fruity pastries, and being able to grab a simple free lunch well after shift.
End of shift I was always looking for the expiring products that we couldn't sell; I ate far too many muffins for a decade. There were some days where I would drink glasses of milk or expiring nut milk simply to feed myself. One of my favorite snacks was granola with the most mature banana that the cafe had. Pouring some milk over the top, or my favorite was a touch of orange juice and 50/50 granola to Greek yogurt. Wow, that sweetness and texture, the gooey with the crunch, the variety in each bite, sometimes each chew itself. The occasional bite of intense salt or burnt granola clusters. Do you see why it was my favorite snack? It was a sound and an activity as much as it was a meal.
This drink captures those moments. It’s not just the ingredients, though they are on point. It’s also a snack with the yogurt and garnish, one of the more playful and unique garnishes I’ve made. At this little bar we make our own granola, with local dried cranberries. It looks fun, but also the smell is so intense as I go to take a sip. Some of my customers eat the garnish first, some dip it right into the drink because they see how it just simply belongs together.
Visually it's playful and subtly elegant. The aroma is intense, but not like a traditional rum cocktail that I’ve ever had. The flavors all harmonize to the rum. And the textures are opposites, in the best way possible.
As I drink it for myself and share the idea with some customers, it makes my heart feel as optimistic and happy as I was when I was “Sleepy in Seattle Again,” dreaming of a time I’d get to travel and have new adventures abroad.
Taking banana phloem bundles and making a syrup. Great food waste reduction.
Banana phloem bundle syrup:
Take discarded banana peels, lightly scrape off the inside of the skin, where the "Phloem bundles" or stringy banana bits are. Weighing the total, we found about 40g per single banana.
Add 2x that weight (80g) of white sugar, 1x (40g) that weight of raw sugar, 2g (per banana) agar agar powder, and 3x (120g) that weight of boiling water, making a simple syrup of all ingredients.
Mix, strain banana out, your banana peel puree is ready to use.
Optional: add in spices such as cinnamon, clove, nutmeg for a “Spiced Banana Peel Puree”
Note: you can use just white sugar and not mix the raw. My observation is if it's a greener banana it really needs the raw sugar to add depth, but if it’s a freckled or browning and soft banana then just white sugar still has nice depth. You don’t have to use the agar agar, it is there to help smooth the texture of the Greek yogurt. I like to add salt to my signature syrups, but with the granola garnish there is a random dosage of salt, so I left this part out of the recipe, knowing as you bite the garnish or if you dip it you will get extra salt.