How To Make Feast Restaurant’s Vision Beta Cocktail

In this series, Logan Rodriguez, the bar manager at Feast, a restaurant in New York City’s East Village neighborhood, shows us how to make five of the bar’s most unique cocktails.
Here, we learn how to make the Vision Beta cocktail. Inspired by a dish of turmeric carrots made by a friend, Rodriguez gave himself the challenge of turning it into a cocktail that didn’t pull back from either the turmeric or carrot flavors. And although the notion of making the infused gin might seem intimidating at first, Rodriguez talks you though the process to make it as foolproof as possible.
Vision Beta
1.5 oz Rapid Turmeric Plymouth gin (see below)
1 oz freshly juiced carrot juice
.25 oz lemon juice
.5 oz Genepy des Alpes
1 tsp salted ume 2:1 (see below) or use .25 oz if you prefer a richer, lingering sweetness
Shake and serve in a rocks glass, preferably with a two-inch cube. Alternatively, can be served up in a coupe.
Garnish with a single sprig of dill.
Salted ume 2:1
2 cups white sugar
1 cup water
.25 oz salted umeboshi vinegar (Eden Foods brand)
1. Set water on heat to near-boiling.
2. Add in the sugar and stir thoroughly until dissolved and nearly clear.
3. Take off heat, and allow to cool to room temperature.
4. Add the umeboshi vinegar to the syrup, and stir or shake thoroughly to incorporate.
(Keeps, refrigerated, for at least three months)
Rapid Turmeric-infused Plymouth
Rodriguez explains:
What is rapid infusion? Before going into detail, it might be worth noting that you don’t have to use a “rapid” pressure-based technique to infuse turmeric. However, it is recommended due to the strong bitter flavors that often come along with a traditional turmeric infusion.
A rapid infusion is an infusion that uses a method outside of prolonged exposure in order to extract the flavors from the infused substance. The method in this case is applying increased atmospheric pressure into a chamber containing all the ingredients, which forces the liquid into the porous structures within the infused ingredient, speeding up an infusion process that might take days or even weeks, depending on the ingredient. The advantage to this aside from saving time is that some ingredients provide unwanted flavors in the course of time that it takes for the desired flavor notes to “transfer.” In a rapid infusion, you can avoid these bitter or undesirable flavors by reducing exposure time. On the other hand, that isn’t to say that rapid infusion is better- it’s just a different technique, which can yield better results depending on what ingredients you’re using or what flavors you’re trying to extract.
By all means, you can use the quantities of this recipe and slow infuse and might achieve satisfactory results, but for my palate this process yields an infusion that is bright and subtle enough that it can be mixed in a variety of contexts or even drank straight. My slow infusion results cannot be given the same judgment.
This component requires a little bit of equipment that most people aren’t likely to have at home, but if you are willing to make a modest investment, you’ll be able to do rapid infusions of liquors and oils as well as foams/whips. I personally use an iSi Gourmet Whip 500ml that I’ve found a lot of use for.
For a complete reference, I’d highly recommend that you refer to the rapid infusion chapter in Liquid Intelligence by Dave Arnold, but I’ll summarize this recipe here as best I can (note: this recipe is in the book itself).
Also, for safety purposes, this recipe is only recommended for the iSi Gourmet Whip, as the infusion requires going slightly outside the recommended pressure parameters, which iSi has designed safeguards around.