La Luna

A Sesame Ginger Whiskey Sour

La Luna

Description

Experience perfection in a glass! Let the blend of umami, spice, sour, and sweet whisk you away to a tranquil Japanese garden – a sip that transcends time and space with delightful sensations. This cocktail, yellow like the moon, is best made with the Japanese whiskey Mars Iwai 45.

DifficultyGraduate

Ingredients

  • 2 parts
  • 1 part
  • 0.75 parts fresh lime juice
  • 1 dash absynth

Sesame Fat-Washed Japanese Whiskey

Close-up of a Mars Iwai 45 whisky bottle with its blue and gold label.

Deeply toasted sesame flavor and a beautiful, silky mouthfeel. Fat washing lets whiskey pick up flavor compounds from the sesame oil, then removes the bulk of the oil before it goes into a cocktail.

Toasted sesame oil is very strong, so a little goes a long way. My ratio is 5 ml toasted sesame oil for every 50 ml whiskey: 75 ml oil for a 750 ml bottle.

Ingredients

  • 750 ml whiskey
  • 75 ml toasted sesame oil

Directions

Combine and agitate

Pour a 750 ml bottle of whiskey into a large, wide-mouth mason jar. Add 75 ml toasted sesame oil, then close the jar and give it a gentle shake to mix.

Freeze and separate

Put the jar in the freezer. The oil separates and collects at the top while the whiskey takes on sesame flavor. This can take a few hours; I usually leave it overnight. Wait until the oil has separated and congealed into a layer on top.

Strain while cold

Take the jar out of the freezer, poke a small hole through the oil layer, and quickly pour the whiskey through a strainer before the oil starts to soften and melt back into it. Leave the separated oil behind.

The finished whiskey carries that rich, toasted sesame flavor with a rounded, silky mouthfeel. I often save the recovered sesame oil to use in cooking.

Variations & alternatives

Choosing the whiskey

Mars Iwai 45 is my favorite starting point. I like a balanced whiskey with different flavors working together. Sometimes I make my own blend of bourbons and peaty Scotches, balancing sweetness and smoke to create the sort of layered profile I enjoy in Japanese whiskey.

A quick shaker shortcut

In a pinch, use regular whiskey and add a couple drops of toasted sesame oil directly to the cocktail shaker. You get sesame flavor, but little oil droplets can remain on top of the finished drink. Fat washing infuses the flavor ahead of time and lets you strain away the separated oil for a smoother finish.

Spicy Ginger Syrup

Peeled fresh ginger pieces on a wooden cutting board.

A bold, spicy ginger syrup made with ginger juice instead of water. Palm sugar is my favorite: its rich flavor plays beautifully with the ginger heat. Cane sugar or another sugar works too.

Ingredients

  • Ginger juice — start with 1 cup and weigh it
  • Palm sugar — the same weight as the ginger juice; cane sugar or another sugar may be used instead

Directions

Make the syrup

Get your ginger juice first. Buying pure ginger juice by the jug, including organic options, is the easiest way I make this syrup, and it comes out great.

Weigh the ginger juice and measure an equal weight of palm sugar, cane sugar, or your preferred sugar. Stir the sugar into the juice until dissolved. The main recipe is 1:1 by weight; there is no added water.

Fresh ginger option

For homemade juice, I like the large ginger pieces available at Asian markets. Peel the ginger, then run it through a centrifugal juicer. Stop the juicer and clear accumulated pulp as needed while processing the ginger.

Freshly juiced ginger can give a fresher, spicier result. For me, though, the difference from good bottled ginger juice is usually not enough to justify the extra hour of prep and cleanup.

Variations & alternatives

One-cup alternative

You can also use 1 cup ginger juice to 1 cup sugar by volume. Both methods work, but equal cups and equal weights give different sugar concentrations. Weighing is more consistent, especially when palm sugar comes in chunks or blocks.

Buying ready-made syrup

A high-quality ready-made spicy ginger syrup is another option. Look for one made with ginger juice as the base, rather than water with a little ginger flavoring. Good versions often cost more, but should have a clear ginger bite; weaker syrups can taste mostly like sugar water.

Directions

Shaken

Shake the mixing ingredients with ice in a cocktail shaker.

Additional steps & variations

shake and pour over one large ice cube in a low ball glass, or ceramic tea cup.

Contributors

Ian, Erika

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