Apple Core Beer Syrup & Candy Garnish
Here we have two ingredients that we can upcycle together:
- Apple Cores, and
- Flat Beer
This is the perfect recipe for bars that deal with beer on tap and fresh seasonal apples or fruit in general.
Very often, lots of beer gets wasted either from accidentally opening up a bottle or from draught spitting out foam.
Pouring a beer from the tap forces out initial foam, and it’s very common to find bartenders remove excess foam from a beer while they’re pouring it.
All that foam once settled turns into beer normally going flat, and it adds up to be a lot of money and product that goes to waste.
When I was bar managing in Australia, the team and I came up with a system to collect all the leftover foam from our taps. And because we used lots of seasonal apples, we would keep the cores separate before juicing them, since they are mostly made up of fiber.
Cooking down the beer with sugar and apple cores makes a delicious syrup that we used for our house Old Fashioneds.
We made all of our Old Fashioneds with Apple Core Beer Syrup because it was much tastier while still staying true to the most classic of classic cocktails.
Our regulars can testify to that!
Ingredients
- Apple Cores (make sure you have 3 or more per 350ml of beer)
- Flat Beer (at least 350ml)
- Sugar (always put half the amount of your beer, so for this case 175ml)
Process
In this recipe, the sugar, cores, and beer will be simmered down together to create the consistency of a rich syrup similar to maple.
The final result should be a dense consistency so that the syrup is more flavorful, colorful, while also adding caramel notes that work well with apple, beer, and whisky-based cocktails.
It’s important to cook down the syrup along with the core so that it soaks up all of the beers malty flavors. Cooking them down with the beer and sugar will also caramelize and soften them.
After caramelizing them, they can be dehydrated in order to transform into tasty garnishes!
Part I:
Prepping the Ingredients
Make sure your cores have been sliced rectangularly. You then want to cut them into cubes so that they can look nice as garnishes. If you have any seeds make sure that you remove them.
For this recipe, use about a bottle of beers worth (around 350ml), make sure you have 3 to 4 Apple Cores cut into cubes.
PAY ATTENTION! Your beer when in contact with fruit and heat may foam up a lot. Make sure that you can regulate the temperature so it doesn’t overflow and spill all over your stovetop.
This accident will only happen in the beginning. Once you see the foam begin to calm down you can take your eye off of it for a little while.
Part II:
Reduce & Filter
You will see your apple cores soaking up lots of color and will turn almost translucent-like. They are now caramelized and packed with beer flavors!
Once ready, filter everything out to separate the cores from the syrup.
And there you have it! Your Apple Core Beer Syrup!
Use three-quarters/half the amount you would regularly use with simple syrup.
Example: if you normally use 15ml of Simple Syrup, swap it out for 10/5ml of Apple Core Beer Syrup!
It works excellently in Old Fashioneds, Amaretto Sours, and in general, most stirred drinks that contain dark spirits.
Part III:
Apple Core Candy
While your syrup is cooling down, place your cores in a dehydrator or oven, and dehydrate.
You don’t want to dehydrate them for too long, but just enough that they get soft and gummy-like, without turning too hard.
The longer you keep them dehydrating the harder they’ll get.
Let them dehydrate for around 4 hours at 75-100 °C with the fan on if you are using an oven.
Check on them every hour just to be sure…
Once done, let them cool and congrats! You have an apple core infused with beer and syrup. This will be the perfect edible garnish for any kind of drink!
These things are delicious, and I recommend you and your customers to nibble on them when having a drink. Eating them whole can be a bit of a waste…
Featured Cocktail:
Classic Old Fashioned
Try using the syrup and your garnish in a classic Old Fashioned cocktail.
- 50ml Bourbon
- 5ml Apple Core Beer Syrup
- 2 Dashes of Angostura Bitters
- Spray of Orange Peel
- Garnish: Apple Core Candy
Combine the Bourbon, Syrup, and Angostura in a mixing glass. Stir with ice for approximately 15 – 25 seconds ’till properly diluted.
Pour over fresh ice in a rocks glass.
Express orange oils over the drink, but do not put the peel in the cocktail. Save it for upcoming sustainable ingredients!
Instead, garnish this drink with an Apple Core Candy.
The taste of this drink…pretty much like a regular Old Fashioned, but better! Give it a try and make this the standard in your bar!
A great example of sticking to a classic while reusing what usually goes to waste.
