Molecular Cocktail Recipe: The Aviary Gin & Tonic

Happy New Year – a phrase that holds a special sort of optimism this time around. To kick off a new and hopefully better year, I thought I’d offer a post on a different kind of drink: a molecular cocktail. The inspiration came from the Aviary Cocktail Book, a gorgeously illustrated compendium of complicated but delicious cocktails by the Aviary bar in Chicago. I decided to make my way through the book this year. My goal is not necessarily to try every recipe, but at least to consider each one, try a few out and share the results here and on Instagram. The first entry in the book is the Aviary gin & tonic. This drink is not actually served at the restaurant, but is a delightful recipe to enjoy at home.

It is worth noting that the reason the Aviary doesn’t serve this drink is that it is too labor-intensive. That word of caution is well-heeded if you intend to make the cucumber spheres that are the drink’s signature component. I would budget several hours to that task. And it wouldn’t hurt to have a friend help you speed things along.

The good news is that the gin and tonic component is not actually all that complicated. And it is a delicious recipe that does well without the cucumber spheres if you don’t have the time or inclination to make them. (For more gin & tonic inspiration and some fun travel photography, see my last post, the Sunset G&T. Or if you’re doing Dry January, check out my Actually Dry Martini recipe.) But we’ll go through the whole thing here. With enough patience, you should end up with something that looks like this:

What You Need Before Starting to Make the Aviary Gin & Tonic

Before we start, you’ll need a couple of things. And unless you’ve experimented with spherification or molecular cocktails previously, odds are you won’t have them all handy. So check your inventory; if you’re missing anything, order what you need and bookmark the page and come back. If you’re in need of suggestions, I’ve provided links for the products I used here. The spirits are available from Drizly (first time users get $5 off using this link). The other items, including the kitchen products, are all available from Amazon.

For the Gin & Tonic:

• Gin (the Aviary recommends Junipero)
• Green Chartreuse
• Fever Tree tonic (I recommend two of the larger bottles if you want to make a batch recipe)
• Citric acid
• Simple syrup (make your own by combining equal parts sugar and water and boiling until dissolved, or order pre-made here)
• A carbonation device (I love the Perlini device from Perlage, which the Aviary book recommends; there are other options, but just be aware that SodaStream does not work for this purpose)
• A digital food scale that can measure to the gram (some of the Aviary’s measurements go to the tenth of a gram, but I got good results with a scale that lacked such precision)
• Glass straws (I used these straws by Hummingbird but would recommend straws of wider diameter for this project, perhaps something like this); note that these aren’t critical if you aren’t going to do the cucumber spheres

For the Cucumber Spheres:

• Four cucumbers
• A juicer that can turn cucumbers into cucumber juice (there are many, many options – I bought this one from Breville years ago, and it is a great product)
• Calcium lactate and sodium alginate, available together here (small packages, but sufficient for this project)
• The digital food scale noted above
• An immersion blender (there are lots of options; I used this one by KitchenAid)
• A strainer (Aviary recommends a chinois strainer, but I got good results using this more affordable cocktail strainer)
• A spherification spoon
• A silicon hemispheric mold – Aviary recommends 5/8 inch specifically – the closest I could find was .51 inch diameter, but that size worked (note you may wish to acquire more than one of these if you want to make the recommended 600 spheres in one sitting, which I did not do; also note I would recommend you use a large flat baking pan as a support base for the mold since the mold is very floppy; and be aware that whatever mold you use will need to fit in your freezer)
• A kitchen syringe
• Three large bowls and two small bowls (these you probably have; ideally, one of the large bowls should have a broad flat base)
• A mason jar or two (in which to store spheres on completion)
• Sugar
• Kosher salt

It’s kind of a lot of stuff. But keep in mind that a lot of it will be useful in future projects, either for future Aviary Gin & Tonics or for other forays into molecular cocktails and spherification, or (for some of the items like the juicer, blender, carbonation device, strainer and scale) a range of other purposes. So let’s press on, and I’ll start with the gin & tonic component first since, even if you decide spherification isn’t worth the effort or investment, you can still make a very tasty cocktail based on this part of the recipe alone.

Making the Gin & Tonic

The gin & tonic piece of the recipe is relatively straightforward: combine the ingredients, chill them, and carbonate (leaving this last step for when the drink is ready to serve).

Note that, in the Aviary cocktail book, the recipe is provided in both single-serve and batch versions. For the cocktail itself, I’ll provide the single-serve portion here. But it’s a simple matter of multiplying them up to create larger batches. Just remember that if you’re planning to use the cucumber spheres, you’ll probably want to coordinate the number of servings. For reference, the cucumber sphere recipe is supposed to produce 600 spheres (though your results may vary, especially since you may find that you have to discard some of your spheres as you work toward perfecting your technique). And the Aviary recommends about 100 spheres per cocktail.

With that in mind, let’s proceed to our three steps.

Combine the ingredients.

For one serving of the Aviary gin & tonic, you need 2 ounces of gin, 1/2 ounce of green Chartreuse, 1/2 ounce of simple syrup, 1.3 grams of citric acid, and 4 ounces of Fever Tree Tonic Water (there are many varieties available now; the recipe calls for the original).

Now, let me pause on 1.3 grams of citric acid. I hadn’t worked with citric acid previously, and I’m not accustomed to measuring cocktail ingredients by the tenth of a gram. Nor need you be. Using the brand of citric acid I recommended above, I calculated that 1.3 grams was equivalent to a quarter teaspoon. It dissolves readily, so you don’t need any special tools here, and there’s nothing difficult or complicated about using this ingredient in the drink. Combine these ingredients without ice in a mixing glass and stir.

Chill the mixture.

Now store the cocktail in your refrigerator. Since we’re going to carbonate the drink before serving, you don’t need to worry about getting an air-tight container to preserve the carbonation of the tonic water. But note that you can skip this step if you’re planning to serve the cocktail right away.

Carbonate the cocktail.

The last step is to carbonate the cocktail. Why carbonate if the drink already contains tonic water, you may ask? The Aviary advises that fresh carbonation on serving gives the drink more of a pop and counteracts the dilution caused by mixing the tonic with the flat ingredients. I agree. And it’s especially helpful if you want to make a batch in advance and store in the refrigerator. The carbonation may diminish while it sits, but you can restore it before serving.

I would recommend doing this step right before serving so that carbonation is at its full potential. If you’re going on to make cucumber spheres, save this step for last, after you’ve finished the spheres and added them to your glass.

If you’re using the Perlini carbonation device recommended above, this step is much like using a cocktail shaker. Please follow the more detailed instructions that accompany the device, but in essence do the following.

Add the mixture to the Perlini container. (If you’re working from a batch of cocktails, measure out 7 ounces per drink – and only carbonate one drink at a time.) If you haven’t already chilled the mixture, add ice. Close the container. After ensuring that there is an active CO₂ cartridge in the pressurizer, tilt the container to a 45-degree angle, insert the pressurizer into the valve at the top of the container, and activate the pressurizer, holding the button until you no longer hear gas entering the container – about ten seconds. Now shake the container for another ten seconds. Allow it to rest half a minute, then slowly unscrew the top of the container, allowing the cocktail to bubble up and back down before unscrewing slowly. It should look something like this:

Now all that’s left to do is to pour the cocktail into a tall glass. (If you’re using cucumber spheres, add your straw to the glass first, then the spheres, then the cocktail.) Aviary recommends that you use an iced glass. That (combined with the fact that the drink should already be cold from being in the refrigerator) obviates the need for ice. And that’s good because you want the cucumber spheres to be the center of attention (and not competing for space with the ice, which might cause them to burst). Speaking of cucumber spheres…

Making the Cucumber Spheres

Now it’s on to the more time-intensive part of this project: cucumber spheres. Before I explain the steps, a brief overview of “spherification” is in order. This is a branch of “molecular gastronomy,” that technique of making interesting food things in the kitchen with science. With spherification, you can encase a juice or other liquid of your choosing in a sphere-shaped membrane that pops when consumed, producing an explosion of flavor on the tongue. It has long been employed in specialized kitchens for both cooking and cocktails, perhaps most famously (in Washington, D.C., in any event) in the restaurants and bars of José Andrés.

But it is also definitely doable at home, and that’s what this part of the project is all about. There are three basic steps: make and freeze the cucumber juice; prepare a sodium alginate bath; and then combine the two, dropping small frozen hemispheres of cucumber juice into the bath and then scooping out, rinsing and storing the resulting cucumber spheres. Ready?

Make the cucumber juice.

To make the cucumber juice, start by juicing your four cucumbers, leaving the peel on. The Aviary recommends quartering and slicing the cucumbers, but I got good results by just juicing the cucumbers whole, and would recommend the same to you (assuming your juicer can physically accommodate that) to save time.

The recipe calls for 1000 grams of cucumber juice. My four cucumbers fell a bit short of that, requiring me to adjust the other measurements in the recipe proportionately. So be sure to measure out your juice production using your scale and make any needed adjustments to the other ingredient amounts. Strain the juice into a large bowl using a strainer. (Consider using a bowl with a lid if you have a small mold and will need to go through several rounds of freezing juice so you can easily place in refrigerator between rounds.)

To the cucumber juice add 108 grams of sugar, 20 grams of calcium lactate and 6 grams of kosher salt. Combine the ingredients using an immersion blender until the sugar, calcium lactate and salt completely dissolve. You may end up with pretty frothy-looking juice, but you don’t need to wait for the froth to settle because you are going to be using a kitchen syringe to draw up the juice, which means you can draw juice from below the surface.

Before you start filling spheres, though, remember to put your mold on top of something more sturdy so you don’t run into difficulty transporting it to the freezer later. I used a baking pan (as depicted below). Once that is in place, fill the syringe with juice and then begin filling the little hemispheres in your mold as follows:

Fill each mold to the top. I worried when doing this that because water expands when it freezes that the hemispheres will spill out over their tops. But that didn’t happen. Instead, it was the under-filled hemispheres that ended up being more problematic (more on that in a bit).

When every hemisphere mold is filled, place the tray into the freezer, doing your best to keep it level. Ideally, you should have some cucumber juice left over. If you’re going to make another round of frozen hemispheres, you should reserve a sufficient amount in the bowl. But you’ll also want to set aside some of the juice in a mason jar or other small container into which you will eventually place your cucumber spheres.

Once the mold is in the freezer and your remaining cucumber juice is apportioned and put away, turn to the next step.

Make the sodium alginate bath.

You should now have two large bowls remaining. If only one of them has a broad flat base, set that one aside. You want the sodium alginate to end up in that bowl, not in a bowl that has a relatively small base (more on that in a bit), and you’ll be pouring the sodium alginate from one bowl to another before proceeding.

In your first bowl, combine 1000 grams of filtered water with 7.5 grams of sodium alginate. (My scale doesn’t do tenths of a gram, but my guesswork – adding a bit more sodium alginate after the scale hit 7 grams – didn’t seem to cause any problems.) I recommend adding the sodium alginate gradually, using the immersion blender as you go along. It does not dissolve into the water quickly. Instead it quickly clumps up, still in powder form, on the surface of the water. You will feel the water become gelatinous, and the blending will take an improbably long period of time. (High speed is recommended if your blender has multiple settings.) Once the sodium alginate is completely dissolved, pour the mixture through a strainer into a new bowl.

The Aviary recommends letting the bowl sit for at least an hour (or as long as overnight). This allows hydration of the sodium alginate and to eliminate any remaining bubbles. To ensure you wait this hour, the Aviary actually recommends preparing the sodium alginate bath first and then making cucumber juice. But you’ll probably end up waiting at least an hour anyway for the cucumber juice to finish freezing. So it makes more sense to proceed in the order suggested here.

Combine the cucumber juice and sodium alginate.

Now it’s time to actually make the cucumber spheres. To set up, warm up the sodium alginate bath, either in a microwave or over a stove. It doesn’t need to be hot. But the warmer it is the faster the frozen cucumber juice will melt in the bath. And faster melting will (slightly) expedite the spherification process. Aviary advises to make sure the sodium alginate doesn’t bubble up; I didn’t have that problem. But if you do you can either pop the bubbles with a fork or knife or spoon them out.

Next you’ll want to put the sodium alginate bowl somewhere with some room to work, because you’ll want to create an assembly line of sorts, leaving room for the cucumber mold at one end of the line, followed by the sodium alginate bowl, followed by two smaller bowls filled with water, followed by the mason jar of reserved cucumber juice.

Only after you’ve got your workspace set up with the bath, bowls and container, retrieve your frozen cucumber hemispheres from the freezer. For this part, you need to work quickly because the hemispheres are so small that they begin thawing almost immediately. Pop the hemispheres out one at a time, and handle as delicately as possible so as to avoid altering their shape. If bits of frozen cucumber juice begin to separate from the hemisphere, it’s likely the sphere won’t form correctly. (I found that my not-fully-filled hemispheres were most likely to become misshapen, perhaps because their smaller size caused them to melt more quickly.)

Once you’ve got one in hand, gently drop it into the sodium alginate bath. Make sure the hemisphere is fully submerged, but without attempting to press it to the bottom of the bowl. Repeat this process with additional hemispheres, making sure that they do not come too close to one another. (This is why you want a bowl with a broad base. I tried this initially with a bowl that had a narrower base, and the hemispheres rolled into one another at the bottom. This contact ruins the spherification process.)

Once you’ve run out of space in the sodium alginate bowl, return the ice mold to the freezer. Now wait briefly for the spherification process to complete. This process occurs quickly and might even be complete for the first few hemispheres you dropped into the bowl. As the cucumber juice melts, it becomes encased in its membrane, and the hemisphere shape becomes spherical. The sphere shape is an indication that the sphere is ready for removal.

To remove the spheres, take your spherification spoon and remove them one at a time. Drop each sphere into the first water bowl and then the second to rinse off the remaining sodium alginate. Then place the sphere gently in your mason jar with the cucumber juice.

Repeat this process until all the spheres are done. If this is your first time, no doubt some of the spheres will burst on you. Don’t fret. You’ll get a sense as you work through the batch for what works best. And you can take a break. (In fact, you might have to at some point. I found that after a few rounds of doing this, the hemispheres were coming out of the freezer in an only semi-frozen state, which will not work.) The sodium alginate won’t go bad if you leave it out. Just remember to place your completed spheres in the refrigerator. (But I would recommend completing this project in one day so the juice is fresh when you serve the spheres.)

Putting It All Together

Okay you’ve mixed the gin & tonic and you’ve made the spheres; now it’s time to combine them into the Aviary gin & tonic you’ve been working toward.

Grab a tall cocktail glass and place the glass straw in the glass. Next, using your spherification spoon, scoop some of your spheres out of the jar and place them in the glass. (Adding the straw first avoids the need to navigate the delicate spheres with the straw, which I didn’t think about when I made the first batch of these.)

Now carbonate the tonic in accordance with the instructions set out above. Pour the carbonated drink into the glass. If you’re entertaining, you may wish to perform this part of the service in view of your guest as it creates a pretty cool effect:

And now you’re done! If you’ve got a properly sized straw, the cucumber spheres will get sucked up while you’re drinking, like bubble tea, creating pleasant explosions of cucumber juice in your mouth as an ongoing garnish to a delicious cocktail. Enjoy – if you got this far, you’ve certainly earned a great drink!

Recipe in Summary

I’m somewhat given to following form. So it wouldn’t be one of my blog posts without a little recipe card at the end. I’m including that here, but obviously this recipe is more complicated than most. The card may not be that useful outside of the broader instructions. But here it is in case useful to you:

Print Pin

Aviary Gin & Tonic

This is a molecular cocktail – the Aviary's take on the gin & tonic, featuring cucumber spheres.

Course Drinks

Cuisine Molecular Cocktail

Keyword Aviary Gin & Tonic

Prep Time 4 hours hours

Total Time 4 hours hours

Servings 1 cocktail

Calories 450kcal

Author The Aviary

Cost $15

Equipment

• carbonation device (I used the Perlini by Perlage)
• digial food scale that can measure to the tenth of a gram
• glass straws (15mm diameter)
• tall cocktail glass
• vegetable juicer
• immersion blender
• fine mesh strainer
• spherification spoon
• silicon (5/8 inch) hemispheric mold
• kitchen syringe
• mason jar

Ingredients

Gin & Tonic

• 2 oz. gin Aviary recommends Junipero
• 1/2 oz. green Chartreuse
• 1/2 oz. simple syrup
• 1.3 g citric acid
• 4 oz. Fever Tree Tonic Water

Cucumber Spheres

• 4 cucumbers
• 108 g sugar
• 20 g calcium lactate
• 6 g kosher salt
• 7.5 g sodium alginate

Instructions

Gin & Tonic

• Combine the gin, Chartreuse, simple syrup, citric acid and tonic water in a mixing glass (without ice) and stir. Chill in refrigerator.
• If you wish to serve the drink with cucumber spheres, proceed to make the spheres. When complete, add the glass straw first and then approximately 100 spheres to a chilled tall glass, using spherification spoon to carefully remove spheres from storage.
• Carbonate the chilled cocktail in a carbonation device and pour into the glass.

Cucumber Spheres

• Juice four large cucumbers in a vegetable juicer. Strain the juice.
• Combine the cucumber juice, sugar, calcium lactate and salt in a large bowl. Blend with an immersion blender until powder ingredients are completely dissolved.
• Using a syringe, draw cucumber juice mixture from the bowl and expel into hemispheric mold until all hemispheres are filled. Place the mold in the freezer until the molds are completely frozen. Reserve remaining cucumber juice in a mason jar and refrigerate.
• In a separate bowl, combine 1000 g of filtered water with the sodium alginate, adding sodium alginate gradually and blending with immersion blender until all clumps are gone. Strain sodium alginate mixture into a new bowl.
• Warm sodium alginate bath in microwave or on stove and allow to settle so no bubbles are present.
• Drop frozen cucumber juice hemispheres into sodium alginate bath, taking care to prevent them from coming into contact with one another. Allow them to melt in the bowl.
• Spoon spheres out one at a time with spherification spoon. Rinse each sphere twice by dipping once into two separate small bowls of water. Drop rinsed sphere into jar of reserved cucumber juice. Repeat until all spheres are created.

Thanks again for reading, and enjoy!