A light blue tropical drink cartoon with a straw and a citrus wheel

"Sha-daan! Happiness to everything!" - Misfortune Ramirez Hernandez

Inspiration

Oh, little Misfortune. How I've pondered personifying you as a drink. You dot the world with glitter and irreverently traverse the open fields and locales of your Swedish town. I've done my best to create beverages that may strike you as "fancy" and may strike others as "yikes forever." For a child-friendly version, I've combined some fancy Swedish tea with two candy syrups and a scoop of lingonberry jam. For when you're older (RIP), a split base of Swedish aquavit and pisco brandy forms an alcoholic foundation for those candy flavors. Did I mention that there's glitter? There's plenty of glitter. Sha-daan!!

Workshopping

“Yikes [it took] forever!”

Okay, I’ve gone back and forth workshopping a Little Misfortune drink for months, and a lot of it was specifically about honing in on ingredients and process. For a long time, I aspired to create a comprehensively Swedish-inspired drink. Something about a game that takes place in Sweden, from independent Swedish video game developer Killmonday Games, made me feel that this drink really had to represent the country.

So, for the first few months, all I really did for this cocktail was research and collect. I visited bars such as Andra Hem right here in Philadelphia that specialized in Swedish-inspired drinks and ingredients. Following that, I collected a couple of aquavits, particularly flavored vodkas from the Scandinavian region, typically flavored with caraway, anise, and often citrus. I took to researching specifically Swedish ingredients, such as a specialized tea blend from the Tea Center of Stockholm, Söderblandning, and even conducted research on various candies popular among Swedish youth, a group of which Misfortune Hernandez is a part.

Admittedly, I spent a long time in a state of decision paralysis until, at one point, it dawned on me that I had to remember why I was even making this drink. For the last few months, I think I had become so obsessive about making drinks formulaically (in other words, to fit a mold or some sort of expectation).

None of this, I think, really captures what it’s like to be Misfortune, a cussing, irreverent young lass who sprinkles everything with glitter and eats candy and other garbage. Something for Misfortune had to represent that chaotic, childlike energy that she brought with her on her quest through Openfields, Sweden, a drink that had dribbles of all the aspects that would dot the last moments of her time in the Third Reality. With this sort of retrospective out of the way, let’s dive in.

“I’m a little [Swedish-Chilean] lady.”

For Misfortune’s drink, I spent time parsing out what would serve as the base for the alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions. For the cocktail, I was determined to incorporate as close a midpoint as I could between Misfortune’s Swedish upbringing and Chilean heritage (she was born in Chile, then moved to Sweden at a young age, just like the developer of the game!). To hit that Swedish influence, my plan was to use aquavit.

I was able to source one from American-made Krogstad, which has been voted one of the best aquavits in the world. The other was labeled simply “OP.” For this one in particular, I couldn’t find much info, but it seems to share lettering with a Swedish brand by the name of “O.P. Anderson,” the so-called “original” Swedish aquavit. I’d come to find, when tasting both of these aquavits, that they were quite different in their expressions. The Krogstad had a potent anise-licorice flavor with lovely botanical notes reminiscent of my experience with caraway-infused rye breads. The OP, on the other hand, was much more citrus-forward, reminding me of the smell of a freshly cracked can of lemon-lime soda. While workshopping with both, I found that the milder OP aquavit of dubious origin paired better with the candy flavors I’ll dive into later in the blog, as well as with the quasi-Chilean influence I’ll get to next.

A subtle nod to Misfortune’s birthplace, Chile, is a rather last-minute inclusion of pisco, a type of grape brandy. Interestingly enough, I was not able to easily source a pisco from Chile, only Peru. While double-checking whether one would substitute for the other, I came to find that there is evidently a small bit of overlap between what Chileans call “pisco” and what Peruvians call “pisco.” It’s a touchy subject, apparently, but from what I understand, I really can’t get away with saying my bottle of Barsol pisco brandy truly represents the Chilean origin of Little Misfortune.

I workshopped the cocktail recipe with what I had, splitting the base of Misfortune’s cocktail with a heavier pour of OP aquavit and some Barsol pisco as well. I’ll update this later with a re-workshopped version of this cocktail when I get my hands on a Chilean pisco.

For Misfortune’s mocktail interpretation, naturally my research into alcoholic spirits wouldn’t help me too much. I’ve been leaning into tea-based mocktails for a few recipes as of late, and I decided to workshop it based on a tea blend that I learned about while sipping at the Swedish bar Andra Hem here in Philadelphia. I had the pleasure of getting a wealth of information from bartender Patrick there, who introduced me to Söderblandning tea, which they use as an infusion in their house boomerang cocktail. The fruity, floral black tea flavor was unlike any tea I had had before, so I committed to using it. I acquired a regular black tea blend as well as a green tea-based blend and found that not only did the original version work incredibly well as a mocktail base, it also worked as an infusion for another ingredient I learned about: Swedish punsch, a specific liqueur made from a blend of rums.

Söderblandning-infused Swedish Punsch

200 ml Swedish Punsch (Kronan)
5 g Black Söderblandning Tea (Tea Center of Stockholm)
Allow to steep together for 15 minutes, then strain to remove the tea.

As a quick aside on the Swedish punsch, I had the chance to correspond with Henrik from Kronan regarding the use of their Swedish Punsch in this particular recipe. I got a nice deep dive into the unique blend of rums with no added spices used to create their bottles. Tasting it on its own, I could swear there must be some spices in there, but he said there’s none at all. When I asked about infusing with tea, his response was that it might have been infused on Swedish ships for certain rum punch type recipes. This absolutely locked in that I’d try the infusion myself.

I further asked about any Swedish-inspired candies that might pair well with the flavor of the punsch, but I did not receive a comment on this. It still got me thinking, though: if Misfortune not only enjoys the smell of “fancy tea” but also her own garbage-derived “mixed candy cone” at Phantasmagoria, I had to try mixing something anyway!

“The smell of freshly made candy [syrups]”

I found that the real fun of this recipe came from developing a couple of custom candy syrups that brought about an intriguing angle. My first thought was naturally to reach for a box of Swedish Fish, which I’ve actually worked with before for our PowerLIME drink. But I didn’t want to default to that, so I did a bit of digging. According to some sources, red Swedish Fish candies are supposed to taste like the foraged Swedish fruit lingonberry. To confirm this, I had to get some lingonberry to try. The closest thing I found was a jar of lingonberry jam that I picked up at the UK pavilion at Disney’s EPCOT, and lo and behold, they didn’t taste very similar at all.

The candy fish have a unique, almost generic red-berry flavor, whereas the lingonberry jam has a rather tart flavor reminiscent of cranberry sauce, with a hint of creaminess at the end. A part of me thought to ditch the Swedish Fish entirely for the lingonberry jam, but the jam was really tart. Instead of adjusting the jam to be sweeter, I decided to revamp my attempts at a Swedish Fish syrup and add another Swedish-inspired candy on top of that. This would be in addition to the lingonberry jam.

Cue my rationale for not just a Swedish Fish syrup, but also a Dots syrup (an American brand of gumdrop candy). From what I can find, the real Swedish Fish candies from Sweden are known as Lakridsfiskar. These candies are typically either a salted licorice flavor with a black color or a wine-based flavor with various other colors. Though the fish I have access to are bright red, I foresee a use for the saltier and darker variety in what I might formulate as a “Misfortunate Misfortune” drink. Instead of bright red fish with the citrus-forward aquavit, I’d use the anise-caraway aquavit with the black licorice fish.

On the other side, my rationale for including Dots candy is to emulate Swedish geléhallon (seemingly spice- or fruit-flavored gumdrops, prominently raspberry). If I ever get the chance to try these authentic Swedish candies, I absolutely plan to revisit this recipe.

With my digressions behind me, I figured it was time to make some candy syrups for these cocktail recipes. My improvement over last time would be to use sous vide to gently create candy "teas" that I would filter carefully before adding sugar, bringing the infusions up to the sweetness level of a simple syrup (50 percent sugar).

Essentially, you follow the same process for both syrups. Take your desired amount of candy and add it to water, then vacuum seal in a heat-safe bag. Submerge in 150°F (65° C) water for 2 hours, carefully giving it a bit of a shake partway through. After the bags cool, pour out the liquids over a coffee filter and allow them to filter as much as possible. Since both Swedish Fish and Dots are gelatinous, it might take a couple of filters to work. The Dots wound up becoming a sandy mass of gel, while the Swedish Fish became like Jell-O. After filtering, add enough white sugar until they reach 50° Brix on a refractometer.

Swedish Fish Syrup (50° Brix)

Combine 100 g Swedish Fish candy and 200 ml water, seal in a sous vide bag
Allow the mixture to sit in a sous vide bath at 150 °F (65.5 °C) for two hours, carefully shaking the bag while at temperature about every hour or so
Remove from the bath and allow to cool to room temperature
Pour the contents of the bag over a coffee filter and allow it to filter in the refrigerator overnight
Add sugar until it measures 50° Brix on a refractometer
- For me, the original syrup measured 25° Brix, so I added (148.73 g * (50 – 25) / (100 – 50)) = 74 g of white sugar

Dots Syrup (50° Brix)

Combine 7 of each Dots flavor (cherry, strawberry, lemon, lime, and orange; about 130 g total) and 200 ml water; seal in a sous vide bag
Allow the mixture to sit in a sous vide bath at 150 °F (65.5 °C) for two hours, carefully shaking the bag while at temperature about every hour or so
Remove from the bath and allow to cool to room temperature
Pour the contents of the bag over a coffee filter and allow it to filter in the refrigerator overnight
Add sugar until it measures 50° Brix on a refractometer
- For me, the original syrup measured 33° Brix, so I added (117.48 g * (50 – 33) / (100 – 50)) = 40 g of white sugar

Flavor Analysis

Cocktail: Sweet and fruity, with prominent citrus and red-fruit notes; lightly cream-like, floral on the finish, with a slight tannic dryness; candy-like body and a slightly thick texture.

Mocktail: Tastes like sherbet; orange-forward with a tea-like dryness. Swedish Fish notes come through, while the lingonberry is mostly muted until the very end, where a faint, cream-like note lingers.

Little Mis-Mocktail