Stirred, Not Shaken: Vancouver bartenders master the art of milk-washed cocktails
From curds to crystal-clear liquid, the process adds character to concoctions
Odd Society Spirits, Strawberry Milk Punch. Photo by Aanjali Spooner
Mia Glanz, Odd Society Spirits. Photo by Aanjali Spooner
Stirred, Not Shaken is Stir’s cocktail column.
CLARIFIED MILK PUNCHES—also known milk-washed cocktails—are nothing new, dating back to at least the 17th century. Apparently Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to pal James Bowdoin in 1763 with a recipe for milk punch, and bottles of the stuff were found in Charles Dickens’s wine cellar after he died in 1870. The crystal-clear drinks are experiencing a revival, showing up on menus across Vancouver and beyond, barkeeps experimenting in all kinds of creative ways with ingredients and the method itself.
First, a brief ’splainer: English milk punch is made by adding milk, traditionally hot, to a citrus- or acid-based cocktail, causing the milk to curdle. (New Orleans-style milk punches are made of bourbon or brandy.) The punch is strained through a cheesecloth to get rid of the curds, which removes the colour and cloudiness and preserves the drink from spoilage.
The mad scientist-like approach leads to a creamy texture even though the liquid is as clear as creek water; it also softens the flavours by removing phenolic compounds from the alcohol via curds rich in casein. Bartenders love clarified punches for another simple reason: they can be made, batched, and refrigerated, stored for a long time, and simply poured to order.
Milk-washed cocktails are Mia Glanz’s speciality. The bar manager at Odd Society Spirits describes the process as a craft.
“There are arguments about the best way to prepare a milk punch: Is the milk warm or cold? Do you pour the cocktail in the milk or the milk in the cocktail? What is the ideal ratio of milk to cocktail? What type of milk? How long should the mixture rest? The possibilities are endless,” Glanz tells Stir. “I love the way milk washing smooths out wild flavours and can unify a rough-draft cocktail into a balanced elixir with a heavy, decadent mouthfeel. The clarity makes for a beautiful and surprising presentation, and the ease of service is also a bonus. I fantasize about making a menu with only milk punches.
“They’re beautiful, delicious, and practical—pre-batched for quick service—and there’s endless experimentation,” she says. “People order them once for their novelty and again because they really enjoyed it.”
This past fall, Glanz was serving up Smoke + Apricots Milk Punch. Inspired by two classic cocktails, Between the Sheets and the Penicillin, it featured Odd Society’s Peat+Smoke Scottish Single Malt Whisky with complementary flavours of apricot and a lap sang souchong tea to enhance the smokiness and intensity of tannins. A garnish of an edible, boozy paint gave the drink a smoky sunset-orange flourish around the rim of the glass. She also makes an Orange Julius Daiquiri using Odd Society’s Mongrel Unaged Rye, milk-washing the spirit only—a less-common technique than clarifying an entire cocktail. The concoction also features vanilla rum, pineapple, and acidified orange juice.
New for Odd Society’s spring menu is Glanz’s Strawberry Milk Punch (pictured at top). She batches together Odd Society Spirits Strawberry Gin, Sons of Vancouver Amaretto, vanilla-bean-infused Martini Bianco Vermouth, lemon juice, Ovaltine, Peychaud's Bitters, and Japanese Umami Bitters. Glanz serves in a glass painted with white chocolate-vodka.
Here’s a taste of what a few other top Vancouver bartenders are bringing clarity to these days.
Pistachio-Basil Colada, GLOWBAL.
Martin Kovalcik, beverage director, GLOWBAL Restaurant
“Milk washing has been known in the bartender's world for a long time,” Kovalcik says. “This year it feels like this technique is experiencing a new renaissance and becoming very trendy around the world again. The history of clarified milk punch, aka English milk punch, has roots dating back to the 1600s, probably first time made by a young British dramatist, poet, and novelist named Aphra Behn. In 1763, Benjamin Franklin mentioned a milk-washing recipe in one of the letters to his friend. In the age without refrigerators and food preservatives, milk punch was the best way to preserve and stabilize the flavour of the drinks.
“Milk washing will give your drinks a special texture and will round the sharp edges of the cocktail,” he says. “Even though you strain the curdled milk out of the cocktail, the milk protein will leave a significant footprint in the taste. The absolute best thing is that this milk washing will preserve your cocktails so you can bottle it up and keep it in your fridge for weeks or months.
“The basic ingredients are alcohol, acid—usually lemon or lime juice or citric acid—and any other components for your cocktail: tea, spices, bitters, juices…” Kovalcik says. “As the milk will round the edges, I always recommend making the batch a little bit more on the sour side. After fine-tuning and balancing the batch, pour it on the top of milk and not the other way around. As soon as the cocktail touches the milk, it will start to curdle. Let it rest up to 24 hours and filter it through cheesecloth or coffee filter. The result should be a clear liquid full of flavours.”
On the GLOWBAL menu: Pistachio-Basil Colada. It’s made of Cuban rum combined with basil cordial, pineapple oleo-saccharum, hazelnut liqueur, and bitters washed with pistachio milk.
Angus Porter, Five Sails.
Angus Porter, assistant general manager and bar manager, Five Sails
“Milk clarification increases the shelf life of any cocktail indefinitely,” Porter says. “Milk-clarified cocktails once properly sealed and kept in a fridge can last technically forever. Another reason I love it: it's fun to be surprised. Milk clarifications can render smoothness to any cocktail and strip it of colour and also of aroma, which means guests can’t detect what’s in the punch until they try it. It’s always fun to be surprised, and milk clarification cocktails excel in this.
“I love how it can instantly change a cocktail into a completely new beast,” Porter says. “I love the history of this technique, how adaptable it is, and also the unique mouth feels you get with clarifications. I have always been a fan of methods that impart unique flavours into spirits such as infusions, fat washing, changing states of matter and now clarifications because it creates something so bold and unique.
“It is the perfect example of art meeting science, in my opinion,” Porter says. “The art comes from matching what flavours and compounds are going to mesh together, using your palate to create your cocktail and also how you want it to look visually. Whether it’s the minimalistic approach or going full-on with the garnish and presentation requires you to be artistic. Then you apply the scientific approach of what ratios, quantities, how long to leave to steep and let the flavours develop, and finally the actual clarification process.”
On the Five Sails menu: “Our Five Sails version is called Punch Obscura,” Porter says. “The idea was to create a seasonal cocktail for the fall, which happens to be my favourite season. It was and is so popular that it made it onto our core cocktail list. Using autumnal flavours such as vanilla chai, Bumbu rum, Cognac, and coriander, I wanted to create a cocktail that with every sip, you are reminded of all the things that make the fall so romantic. The flavours that develop through the clarification process are chai vanilla, some citrus, banana and caramel from the rum, spice from the coriander, and richness from the Cognac.”
Aman Nijar, Wildlight Restaurant + Bar
Aman Nijjar, bar manager, Wildlight Restaurant + Bar
“Milk-washing and the clarification of cocktails are classic techniques that have now made a resurgence in the world of mixology as we take a more culinary approach in designing cocktails,” Nijar says. “The resurgence can be attributed to the creative evolution of mixology as bartenders are looking to the past for inspiration on modernizing classic techniques. I also believe our guests now are more knowledgeable and interested in the craft of making cocktails, partly due to the pandemic inspiring at-home bartenders, which produces a new challenge in designing standout cocktails. Another cause of the resurgence can be the ease of creating signature batched cocktails or low-ingredient cocktails during preparation periods in the day so that service can run more efficiently. Our signature Clarified Cosmo is a cocktail on tap which is only made possible due to milk-washing and then clarifying the cocktail as the process reduces the acidity from the citrus and binds all the flavours together. Without this process, a batched cocktail with citrus would have a significantly reduced shelf life.
Clarified Cosmo, Wildlight Kitchen + Bar.
“My focus in designing our cocktail menu has always been to create and maintain a perfect cocktail balance using local spirits, liqueurs, citrus, and in-house syrups,” Nijar says. “Milk-washing adds a unique smoothness and balance to otherwise traditionally tart or sweet cocktails.
“Milk-washing and cocktail clarification is a science and takes a few trials to perfect the desired end product. However, I believe all science is an art form as well, therefore I see these techniques as forms of art,” Nijar says. “Personally, I do as much research as I can on techniques, recipes, flavour pairings, and trends before I commit to crafting a new cocktail.
On the Wildlight menu: “Our Clarified Cosmo is my take on creating a cosmopolitan cocktail for everyone with the intention of breaking down the stereotype of an overly sweet cocktail,” Nijar says. “Another reason our Cosmopolitan stands out is that we make our own Cosmo syrup in-house, which is a mix of cranberry juice, orange, ginger, spices, and bitters.”
Botanist, Much Needed Escape.
Jeff Savage, head bartender, Botanist Bar at Fairmont Pacific Rim
Botanist, led by creative beverage director Grant Sceney and head bartender Jeff Savage, made a big splash recently, having won the Michter’s Art of Hospitality Award—the first Canadian bar to do so, as voted on by 260 members of North America’s 50 Best Bars Academy. The team also took home the Exceptional Cocktails Award in the inaugural Michelin Vancouver guide.
“I think the interest [in milk clarification] stems from a combination of two things: first, a reinvigorated desire for clear and clean looking cocktails in bars these days; and second, the unique texture that milk clarification can provide,” Savage says. “Not to mention the process is pretty fun to go through, and though it’s pretty simple, it does feel a little magical to see a drink go through this process.
“I love the texture that it brings to a drink,” Savage adds. “I really care about how a drink I am making feels on the palate, and this process gives such a rich texture without actually making a drink creamy. I also love going through the physical process of pouring an entire cocktail into a bunch of milk.”
On the Botanist menu: “One example on our menu is the Much Needed Escape, a blend of pineapple husk-infused rum, coconut, ginger, sencha tea, lemon and lime, and clarified milk,” Savage says. “It’s based off of a time when we weren’t able to travel—see 2020-2021—and I missed enjoying the signature travel cocktail: a pina colada. Think of this drink as a pina colada with the rough edges polished off a touch.”
Fable Kitchen, Clarified New York Sour.
Kevin O'Neill, general manager, Fable Kitchen
“I personally love using this technique with more booze-forward cocktails to give them a more rounded finish and silky smooth mouthfeel,” O’Neill says. “It can be an artform. I did a large-batch, whole milk-washed Boulevardier, and added a tiny bit of orange juice for the citric acid to activate the curdling prior to filtration. After I filtered the whole milk wash, I added the large batch Boulevardier into an oak barrel and stored for a couple weeks. The art in this process was the change in flavour from one day to the next as the cocktail absorbed the oak from the barrel. Day 6 was by far my favourite.
“Milk-washing cocktails led me down a wormhole of other alternative methods as well as clarifying fruit juices with an enzyme called Pectinex (Pectinase),” he adds. “In working through all these various methods, I have discovered some very interesting variations on some classic cocktails and stunning riffs that are equally pleasing to both eyes and palate: Clarified Last Word using crystal clear lime juice; Clarified Aviation using clarified lemon juice; and, my personal favourite, Strawberry Negroni, using 100-percent pure, clear strawberry juice and combining it with Brockmans Gin, which is red-berry forward right out of the gate.
On the Fable Kitchen menu: “I’m a big fan of whiskey sours and also really enjoy New York sours from time to time, so I made a whiskey sour without egg white and whole milk-washed it,” O’Neill says. “It was beyond smooth, almost unrecognizable compared to how it was prior to the whole milk wash. Naturally the next step was to try it as a Clarified New York Sour, and that was probably my favourite cocktail I have made to date. It was rich, velvety, and just clean with no rough edges at all. I used Woodford Bourbon, freshly squeezed Lemon juice, simple syrup, and Peychaud’s bitters; for the red-wine float I used a big dry, red-fruit forward Cab Sauv Austin Hope 2018. “
Related Articles
