Hooked on Hojicha

Hojicha is great as a tea and in desserts. A nice hojicha soft serve far eclipses its matcha equivalent. But when it comes to the world of cocktails, matcha and hojicha serve VERY different purposes. While matcha is most commonly used drink-wise in the ever so popular matcha latte or rarely in cocktails such as the Yuzu Salty Dog and the Tea Ceremony from Martiny's in NYC, hojicha is used as simply plain tea and doesn't see much application past that.

This cocktail, like many of my favorites, takes inspiration from More Savory Goods' YouTube channel. His Hoji on Holiday cocktail consists of:

• 2.5 oz oz milk clarified hojicha-infused rum

• 1/2 oz lemon juice

• 3/4 oz pineapple gum syrup.

I really liked the idea of using milk to clarify a single ingredient, rather than the whole cocktail. Steeping hojicha in rum and clarifying it in milk wasn't terribly difficult, but I needed to add a bit of lemon juice to initiate the milk curdling as I didn't have any citric acid on hand:

Since I'm not aiming for a clear milk punch like I do with some of the other milk punches that I make, I can afford to not be super thorough in the filtering process. It's not bad to leave in a little cloudiness from the milk as I actually think it helps make the end product feel a tad smoother.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pineapple gum syrup on hand, nor did I want to go out and buy it. However, I had something he didn't: Hojicha liqueur. I'm a huge fan of Yuki Yamazaki's line of japanese bitters and liqueurs, and they now make up a good portion of the more interesting cocktail ingredients in my bar. While some of them, like yuzu bitters, are quite easy to use (they're pretty much lemon bitters with a different flavor after all), others, such as the hojicha liqueur, have an incredibly unique flavor profile. On one hand, it can be implemented well to create a cocktail like nothing else, while on the other hand, it can also be hard to incorporate into a cocktail without it either overpowering the other flavors or being drowned out.

I like creating cocktails that mix together different flavors with the perfect balance, but I also like focusing a cocktail on a single theme or ingredient and trying to bring its full potential out. My first iteration consisted of replacing the pineapple gum syrup from the Hoji on Holiday cocktail with hojicha liqueur, which proved to be too much hojicha packed into too small of a serving size. I used:

• 2 oz oz milk clarified hojicha-infused rum

• 1/2 oz lemon juice

• 1 oz hojicha liqueur

Thankfully, the Japanese liqueurs are quite strong in taste, and I learned that you don't really need much of it to bring out its flavor in a cocktail. With my lesson learned, I then sat and considered how to replace the hojicha liqueur without leaving the cocktail tasting off or too sour. The hojicha liqueur itself is quite sweet with a VERY strong taste of concentrated hojicha, and I feared that cutting some of it out would leave it not well-rounded. I contemplated adding simple syrup, as it's the go-to way to add sweetness in, but that seemed too plain and wouldn't add any flavor. Elderflower liqueur was another contender, but the floral notes of St. Germain wouldn't match as well with the hojicha as I would like.

An unlikely contender arose: agave nectar. While normally it's used in tequila or mezcal based cocktails, its almost caramel-like taste and color would compliment the hojicha's perfectly. As a final note, I added a few drops of Hinoki bitters (also from the Japanese bitters line) to accentuate the smokiness of the cocktail and I present the final recipe to you:

• 2 oz milk washed hojicha rum

• ½ oz hojicha liqueur

• ½ oz lemon juice

• ½ oz agave syrup

• 4 drops hinoki bitters

To make the milk washed hojicha rum:

• Steep 6 oz of rum in hojicha leaves for 3 hours

• Mix with 1.5 oz of milk and ½ oz of lemon juice

• Let it sit for 30 minutes, then strain through an oil filter a couple times to filter out milk curds

To serve:

• Pour all liquids into a shaker

• Shake with ice

• Hawthorne strain into a coupe glass

• Garnish with a few more drops of Hinoki bitters

What's super interesting about alcohol that's been infused with tea is that when shaken, it produces a nice foamy head similar to using an egg white. This is quickly becoming one of my favorites. Enjoy!