Bartender Journey goes to Europe! Plus, more on Lime Juice.

Happy New Year. I hope its full of great things for you.
I’m starting 2019with an epic trip. I Bartend at a private club and we are closed after New Years Eve for almost 6 weeks.
So I am taking my time off and going to Europe for over a month!
I am bringing my audio gear and hope to push out some podcasts from the road. I will be visiting some distilleries, and lots of bars and restaurants, so the plan is to have you follow along on the trip a bit.
The shows might not always be completely Bartending focused, but should be interesting.
I leave today, Jan 3, 2019 for Edinburgh Scotland. Then I go to Paris for 4 nights, I’ll take a train to a small town called Chambery, then ski in the French Alps for a few days. I’ll go to Geneva Switzerland, then on to Florence and Rome and last stop Ireland.
Follow me on IG at BartenderJourney for some pictures and hopefully you are subscribed to the podcast so you get the shows as they come out.

Fresh lime juice is just an amazing ingredient.  Of course by “fresh” we mean it is freshly squeezed from an actual lime, but also “fresh” in that it is less than 24 hours old.
Its expensive though.  And the cost fluxuates.  Another thing to consider is the method you use to squeeze the limes.  We discussed this back in episode #214. 

The more I thought about these two issues – the cost ie trying to maximize yield, and the fact that there is so much yummy goodness in the skins, I started to experiment.  If you’ve ever made oleo sacrum, you know that sugar draws the oils out of the skins.  To make oleo sacrum you peel the citrus - usually lemons but can be any citrus – so that you have only the skin and none of the white pith.  You add regular granulated sugar, cover or better yet vacuumed seal it, and let it sit.  After awhile all the sugar is turned into an oily delicious sort of thick syrup.  You can add hot water to this and strain out the solids, or add the whole thing solids and all to a punch.

I thought “what if I add sugar to my left over lime husks?”  Sure enough it worked as planned.  It increases the yield by about 50%!  It also tastes great in cocktails.  Of course we are adding a little sugar, so that has to kept in mind when adding simple syrup or other sweeteners to a drink made with the juice.

I’ll  explain my method from start to finish.  Maybe you’ll want to give it a try:

• Wash the fruit!  We are all doing this right?  For juice and garnishes.  Its important.  There could be pestides or even nasty stuff from fertilizer.   You don’t  know who’s been touching your fruit or if bugs have landed on it. 
• Cut in half obviously
• I use the clamshell hand juicer.  I even squeeze it once, put it aside, squeeze anther half, and then put the two halfes togther in the juicer and squeeze again.  I get more juice that way.
• I put the spent husks in a container – I just use a water pitcher and when I’m done I add about 1/2 cup sugar for every 10 whole limes.  I also add a pinch of salt. 
• I use my muddler to mix it up a bit.  I don’t really mash it up a lot but it seems to help the sugar incorporate with the fruit – kind of brusing more than muddling I guess you could say.
• Once you don’t really see the granulated sugar, but a thick syrup coating the fruit its ready.  I find if it sits too long it gets bitter from the pith.
• I add about ¼ of hot water – tea water from the coffee machine and fine stain that.  That goes right into my lime juice. 

Trash Tiki actually make a Lime Stock, (recipe).