Tiger Toddy (a hot non-alcoholic kumquat and whiskey cocktail to ring in the Year of the Tiger)
Happy Lunar New Year, everyone!
For the first time since I can remember, in 2022 the whole wide internet largely shrugged at the idea of New Year’s resolutions. The explanations given were largely that, after 2-going-on-3 years of a pandemic that seems to come roaring back just as we’ve thought it might be starting to subside, planning ahead and pushing oneself to do anything other than just hang in there seemed frankly rather cruel. Astrology nerds chalked it up to Venus starting a 40 day retrograde right at the end of December. Whatever the reason, essays and podcasts and tweets and just general conversations among friends all seemed to emphasize being gentle with yourself in January, rather than starting the annual physical tortures of ineffective diets and brutal exercise regimens.
I, for one, welcome all of you usual overachievers to the No Resolutions Club.
I’ve never been good at resolutions, because with the back to back celebrations of Thanksgiving, my mid-December birthday, Christmas, and then planning and cooking an appropriately southern good luck meal for New Year’s Day, I simply find myself running out of time to sit down and evaluate what I’d like to improve. The farthest I look ahead into a new year is usually reminders I put in my calendar to return someone’s email or discuss some work related thing I promised someone I’d touch base about after the holidays.
I think we should institute a tradition of a whole month of rest, rather than an intense regimen of harsh and joyless self-improvement. After all, you can make resolutions whenever you want! Set goals whenever you feel like it! In any case, research shows that New Year’s resolutions are not only a notoriously bad way to accomplish anything, but they’re also uniquely effective at making you feel terrible when you fail at them.
But if Venus stationing direct on Saturday has you suddenly wishing you’d made a New Year’s resolution after all, well, you’re in luck, because tomorrow is Lunar New Year! (I will not be making any resolutions, but I do plan to eat long noodles, dumplings, and a few mandarins for good luck.)
I love Lunar New Year, despite only being introduced to it as an adult when I moved to New York. Lunar New Year (or Chinese New Year as it’s often called, though several East Asian cultures celebrate the holiday) is a big deal in the city. We have not one, but two Chinatowns, and both host multi-day festivals and big parades. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the New York Philharmonic, the Queens Botanical Garden, the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, and even the Staten Island Museum have Lunar New Year celebrations of one kind or another. I love the food, the bright joyful red paper and gold foil decorations, the shaggy-furred dancing lions and dragons with huge, toothy mouths, and, of course, a second chance to ring in the New Year, this time with a specific animal to represent it.
This week’s drink, the Tiger Toddy, is inspired by the coming Year of the Tiger.
The Tiger Toddy isn’t a riff on any particular East Asian drink or cuisine, but there were 4 qualities I wanted it to have:
It had to be hot, since it’s absolutely freezing right now
It had to contain something considered lucky for the Lunar New Year
It had to be orange (like a tiger!)
And it had to have a bite (like a tiger!)
For the “something lucky,” and the color, I chose a base of muddled kumquats. The citrus fruit, with it’s fully edible skin, has such a wonderfully sour and aromatic flavor, and the very short season for them falls during the Lunar New Year. Make sure that you really crush up the kumquats, even the seeds— they contain pectin that gives a nice body to the drink. In fact, if you want it to be especially thick, crush everything together and leave it for about half an hour so the pectin can have some time to set. I used a stainless steel OXO muddler that is hard nylon on the bottom with little pyramid studs like a meat tenderizer, and while I often find it less desirable for muddling than the traditional rounded bottom wooden stick, it’s great in this instance for pressing out a lot of oil from the kumquat skins, and breaking the star anise into little pieces. Whatever you use, you’re going to need to really put your back into it, and you might want to cut little slits in the kumquats before muddling them, as they do have a tendency to burst like little fruit bombs, ejecting precious kumquat juice everywhere but in the bowl or shaker where you want it.
I’ll admit that my decision to use Nickel Dime Cocktail Syrup’s Caged Heat was largely because of the tiger on the label, but it definitely brings the necessary bite. The Caged Heat syrup isn’t super cheap, but there’s really nothing like it, and trying to DIY your own tamarind, cardamom, and ghost pepper syrup would probably end up being about as expensive once all is said and done. It’s also great with Monday Zero Alcohol Whiskey, lemon juice, and a dash or two of cardamom bitters, either shaken and served up, or over ice and topped with seltzer water. I’ve tried all of their syrups, and this is far and away the best one, with Fairy Dust (which is used in the Seelie Court cocktail I posted several months ago) a close second. They also sell a sample pack, which you might want to buy because, while I haven’t yet published the recipes I’ve developed for the Crimson Smoke and Cherry Bomb syrups they will be on 5PM Eternal at some point in the future.
For the non-alcoholic whiskey, I used Free Spirits The Spirit of Bourbon, but others with a lot of heat, like Monday Zero Alcohol Whiskey, would work here, too.
The star of this drink, no pun intended, is the star anise. Don’t worry, anise avoiders: the flavor isn’t strongly licorice, and it guards the mouth and throat from the extremely puckering kumquat while banking the heat of the ghost pepper in the syrup for a drink that is cozy and warming instead of a violent conflagration of acid and fire. Don’t get me wrong; it’s hot, and not just temperature-wise. But like a heating pad or crackling fire, it’s comforting and soothing, even if it might make you break a sweat.
RECIPE: Tiger Toddy
Ingredients
5-6 kumquats (around 40-50 grams or 1.5 ounces, if you have a kitchen scale)
1 ½ ounces Free Spirits The Spirit of Bourbon
2-3 points of star anise pod
hot water (6-8 ounces to taste)
garnish (optional): 2 or 3 thin slices of kumquat; 1 whole star anise pod
To Mix
In a small bowl or cocktail shaker, crush the kumquats with the muddler until their juices have been released, and the skins have torn into several pieces and are very flat. Don’t be afraid of the seeds— they contain pectin that will add a nice body to the finished drink.
Add the Caged Heat syrup, non-alcoholic whiskey, and 2 or 3 points from a star anise pod to the kumquat mash, and muddle everything together until the star anise is in several pieces and the syrup, juice, and whiskey are well combined.
Through a fine mesh sieve, strain the liquid into a heatproof mug or glass, gently pressing down on the crushed kumquats to yield as much liquid as possible. (Do NOT use a standard cocktail strainer for this purpose.) You should have about ¼ cup (or 2 ounces) of liquid.
Top with very hot or just boiled water to taste and stir to combine.
Garnish with a whole floating star anise pod, and 2 or 3 thin slices of kumquat (though be warned the kumquat slices may sink).
Serve hot.
Serving Suggestions
If making some Year of the Tiger resolutions isn’t your thing, the obvious serving suggestion for the Tiger Toddy is to pour some in an insulated travel mug and go to your local Lunar New Year parade. It’ll keep you toasty from the inside out while you watch the sinuous, fluffy lion puppets dance down the street. Just Google “Lunar New Year” and your town and you should find a listing. (You should do this, anyway, because Google has a really cute Year of the Tiger animation fireworks animation that happens when you do.)
Until next week, Happy Lunar New Year! Keep yourself warm and your drinks zero-proof, and it can be 5:00 whenever you want in the Year of the Tiger!
