"Sonic’s the name. Speed’s my game." - Sonic from The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog

Inspiration

Sega’s iconic blue blur, Sonic the Hedgehog shares his name with another simple cocktail, the gin sonic. In creating a cocktail for one of my favorite video game characters of all time, I couldn’t just settle for throwing blue curaçao into a gin sonic. Instead, we combine the flavors of peach (an ode to the Sonic G-Fuel “peach rings” energy drink) and shochu (an ode to his origins from Japanese game developers). These ingredients are balanced with soda water and tonic water in an effervescent libation I lovingly call “Sonic the Highball”.

Workshopping

Peach Gin Sonic

To embody the world’s fastest hedgehog as a craft cocktail we first took into consideration what drink forms of Sonic already exist. Two distinct implementations come to mind, most notably the “Sonic’s Peach Rings” G-Fuel energy drink and a classic highball cocktail, the gin sonic. The former takes as inspiration the golden rings that appear through almost every iteration of Sonic the Hedgehog media and treats them as if they tasted like peach ring candy (definitely a better interpretation of them than tasting like metallic gold). The latter is a riff on the gin & tonic where the tonic part of the drink is split in half with soda water. See what they did there? “Gin + Soda + Tonic”, “Gin + So’tonic”, “Gin + S’onic”. Gosh, I love wordplay cocktails. :3

This notion of Sonic the Hedgehog the Drink tasting somewhat like a peach-forward highball felt like a great place to start. I also loved the way “Sonic the Highball” just rolled off the tongue. “Maybe”, I thought, “all the hedgehogs could have highball drink interpretations!” A devious plan indeed… (Queue references to Shadow the Highball, Silver the Highball, and Amy the Highball)

Peach Ring Adventure

At this point, we had decided that a peach highball would be in order for Sonic, and we would try to ensure he had his characteristic blue hue (and we were prepared to use food dye if we had to). There was a lot of experimentation that went into how exactly to add that peach flavor. I didn’t want to just throw peach schnapps in a gin sonic and call it a hedgehog just yet, so we played around a bit.

A while back during the Undertale playthrough the XBar had purchased an Anova sous vide and Anova vacuum sealer using the contributions of a very kind Twitch chat member who funded the pair. I had been way too anxious to use it for months and decided that using it to infuse something with fresh peaches would be the best way to take the first step. Our first attempt saw us quartering two peaches with the skin on and submerging them in a 6 oz pour of bourbon (Larceny Small Batch) since I was most familiar with peach and whiskey being a notable flavor combo (think Crown Peach Canadian whiskey for example). The peach and whiskey were vacuum-sealed in a bag and left to sous vide at 150 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 hours. This first attempt did not taste very good, and both the peach-infused whiskey and whiskey-infused peaches tasted like they had gone bad. As an attempt to remedy this, we clarified the homemade peach whiskey with some heavy cream, and the flavor only got worse despite the mixture clearing up a bit.

There were a few things we learned from our first attempt.

1. You can make whiskey-infused peaches taste better by covering them in sugar (a simple maceration).

2. The inclusion of the peach skins (we thought) produced off-flavors in the whiskey.

3. You can still add blue food dye to homemade peach whiskey and it will turn blue (albeit, a bit green and swampy too).

Our second attempt featured a few more peaches, de-skinned this time and with a larger volume of whiskey (we swapped from a small batch bourbon to a cheaper bottle of blended whiskey as a means to conserve resources during this experimentation phase). We used six skinned peaches this time and about 3x as much whiskey at the same temperature and time (150 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 hours). The whiskey had a much cleaner flavor and the peaches tasted much better too. Was this the skins, or did we use better peaches this time? Not sure. With the scraps of the batch, we made a peach skin oleo saccharum (this became useful for Sonic’s mocktail) and clarified a puree made from the leftover whiskey-infused peaches. The peach skin oleo came out a nice orange color and we used a bit of Pectinex Ultra SP-L on the peach puree to allow it to separate out and clarify. In parallel, we clarified a bottle of peach nectar from the grocery store also using Pectinex. At this stage, we had amassed a number of peach ingredients:

• Peach-Infused Blended American Whiskey (via sous vide)

• Peach Skin “Oleo Saccharum” (macerate peach skins in equal weights sugar)

• Clarified Whiskey-Infused Peach Puree (blend the peaches and mix with Pectinex, allow time to separate)

• Clarified Store-Bought Peach Nectar (basically puree with preservatives, added sugars, and citric acid ~ clarified with Pectinex as well)

I briefly tested the different peach “juices” in simple highballs. The peach skin oleo, the clarified whiskey-infused peach puree, and the clarified peach nectar would be mixed in two ounces and topped with five ounces of chilled soda water. I wanted to get a feel for how each ingredient represented the flavor of peach. The homemade puree leftover from the sous vide was very light on flavor. It was a delicate representation of peach and the highball was what I’d describe as very peach seltzer-like: the essence of peach without extraneous sugars or modifications. The peach nectar was a bit more balanced on sweet and sour and tasted the most conventionally “juice”-like. Think of orange juice from the store as opposed to real fruit juice. Not super sweet, not particularly tart either, but definitely peach. Lastly, the peach skin oleo was very sweet and very peach-forward. It also captured the slight dryness of a peach’s flavor more obviously and more concentratedly than either other ingredients.

Plot Twist - Japanese Spirits

Around the time we had created our peach products, I had begun attending some seminars required for the JSS Shochu Competition which tasked bartenders and mixologists to use Japan’s own shochu spirit in a cocktail inspired by Japanese art. I learned more about the spirit and even acquired a few bottles of shochu to play around with. One distilled at a higher proof and distilled from barley (iichiko Saiten), another distilled to a lower proof and made from sweet potatoes and rice (Satsuma Mura Imo), and one more low-proof shochu distilled from sugar cane (Kinmiya Miyazaki). I, being between the Kingdom Hearts and Sonic the Hedgehog projects, got a bit overwhelmed and ultimately did not make a submission to the competition, but the thought occurred to me still that Sonic the Hedgehog is a product of Japanese innovation and creative expression. If there were a spirit to represent Sonic the Hedgehog, wouldn’t it make sense to use one as ubiquitous to Japan’s drinking culture as shochu—served in the style of Japan’s beloved highball?

I felt an idea bubble up and I threw together a quick shochu-based sonic recipe with the peach skin oleo that was leftover from some earlier experimentation. This recipe was 2 ounces of iichiko Saiten shochu, 0.5 ounces of peach-skin oleo saccharum, 2 drops of blue food dye, then topped with 4-5 ounces of tonic water. To my surprise, it was beautifully floral and juicy in the way a fruit would be! Oddly enough, my palate didn’t think this tasted like a peach highball, but a pear highball instead!? The concept was unexpectedly great (and with the added food dye, a deep blue hue). The only issue was, it tasted to me like the wrong fruit!

Peach Adventure 2: Balance

Now was the time to put together everything we had learned from our peach-flavored experimentation. This time we’d infuse the peach flavor into shochu instead, specifically the barley-based shochu, iichiko Saiten. Same as before we would use the sous vide machine:

Peach Infused Shochu

• Skin and deseed four peaches and cut the flesh into quarters. I’d recommend using peaches that are ripe (give them a light press with your finger, they should be slightly firm but still soft)

• In a sous vide bag, combine the peach pieces and 12 oz of shochu. Vacuum seal the bag and prepare a sous vide bath at 150 degrees Fahrenheit (65 degrees Celsius)

• Allow the bag to sit in the bath and infuse at temperature for 2 hours. Allow the bag to come down to room temperature afterward.

• Strain out the solids (don’t discard them - See Shochu Infused Peach Syrup below) and pour the liquid into a bottle (it should be a bit cloudy).

• To remove the particulates, add 2 drops of Pectinex Ultra SPL and let sit for about 2 days. (If you’ve got a centrifuge, you probably have the knowledge of how to speed this up)

• Rack off the clarified shochu, and you’re good to go!

We retried the shochu and peach skin oleo tonic recipe above with the infused shochu this time and got a bit closer to Sonic’s drink. The resulting drink was savory and peachy but lacked a bit of that peachy sweetness. If extra sweetness was needed, we needed more sugar, right? Well, increasing the proportion of the peach skin oleo did make it sweeter, but it really wasn’t getting the drink closer to that fresh peach flavor (with the savory backbone from the shochu, naturally).

As I hinted at earlier, if we infused shochu with peaches, then correspondingly we infused peaches with shochu. So, we made a syrup using the leftover peaches from the sous vide by covering them in sugar and letting them sit in the style of a typical maceration.

Shochu Infused Peach Syrup

• Measure out the peach solids left from the Peach Infused Shochu infusion and cover them in equal parts sugar (your choice of what type, we went with white granulated sugar for a cleaner flavor)

• Cover the peaches in sugar and let sit in a container until the sugar liquefies. Strain out any solids and you’ve got your syrup! (The solids taste great by the way and I’d recommend trying one of your candied shochu peaches)

After all this, it was time to combine it one last time. Instead of using a peach skin syrup the shochu-infused peach syrup was exactly what was needed to give Sonic that peach ring flavor that G-Fuel has convinced us is so good, albeit without the “energy”. At this stage, we played around with the volumes of syrup, soda, and tonic water and settled upon the final ratios below. Cutting the tonic water with soda allowed for a lengthening of the fresh peach flavor. We did play briefly with just adding peach schnapps/liqueur to see if we could’ve circumvented this whole process, but the way those spirits paired with the shochu was not very pleasing to us. On a final note, I found that topping the drink with a couple of dashes of peach bitters really set up that first sip to be very obviously peachy!

Garnish Game (Gear)

In terms of the final presentation for Sonic the Highball, we really wanted to create something that felt unique. As to my statements above, I believe that Sonic deserves more than just adding blue curaçao to any ol’ drink and garnishing with a pre-made peach ring candy. We tackled the blue part already (throw in some food dye), but what about that garnish?

I saw this awesome garnish technique on Instagram by @cocktailinparadise that gave me hedgehog vibes. The thought occurred to me, “What if I did that, but made it blue?” So, that’s what I attempted to do over the next couple of weeks. The first question that needed answering was whether or not lemons, oranges, or other citruses can be dyed blue in an easy fashion. Sure, I could probably paint them or candy them, but what if I could infuse the color directly into the fruit? Attempt number one was quite literally slicing a lemon and putting it into an iSi whipper with blue food dye and seeing what would happen. Well, this happened after two days of letting it sit. The lemon flesh got all fizzy, it had a layer of blue skin and the rind of the lemon turned this really interesting green color. Not really what I was hoping for, but if you notice the layer in between the rind and the fruit (the pith) it had a nice blue hue to it.

If via this method, I couldn’t turn the rind blue, but I could turn the pith blue, then I just needed to know whether I could arrange the pith the same way that @cocktailinparadise arranged the rind. My next attempt had me trying to infuse this without the iSi whipper by placing this time orange rind into jars of colored water. I figured oranges were the most cost-effective for experimenting with since they had the largest surface area to price per pound. Well, as I left the jar for about 4 days, they fizzed up and began fermenting before any reasonable color developed in the pith. The ferment also smelled like dirty socks so it wasn’t even a win for fermentation either!

I finally settled on the rapid infusion with the iSi whipper after determining that you could infuse enough color into the pith within about 5-10 minutes. The depth of color that you can obtain in the pith corresponds to how much dye you add to the iSi whipper. The more drops of dye, naturally the deeper the color. I nailed down a process that works for me for these garnishes so I’ll lay it out here for your convenience. I opted for a lemon for these garnishes because the size of a quartered slice is perfect for this application.

Pith Hedgehog Head

• Pick a citrus of your choice and slice it into quarters (I’d recommend lemons for their relative size)

• Remove the flesh from the citrus slice and discard/reuse it. (I found this to be easiest by peeling the rind from the fruity flesh on the inside. Watch for squirting citrus juice!)

• Lay the pith flat on a cutting board, and using a paring knife carefully shave off the rind and discard/reuse it. (for a lemon, this is the yellow part of the peel) You can also shave a small bit of the inside off the pith to remove any veiny bits, they tend to absorb the dye easier and take on a darker color. A properly processed peel should go from looking like this (picture 1) to this (picture 2). 

  • The key here is to have a pith ellipsoid that is thin and smooth on both sides

• Place the four pith slices into an iSi whipper and fill with enough water to cover the pieces. Add your choice of food dye (I chose blue) and add more drops depending on how deep you want the color to be. (for me it was 5-6 drops)

  • At this point, if you’re worried about staining your fingers, put some gloves on!

• Close the iSi whipper then charge it with one nitrous charge. Afterward, give it a good shake. Allow to rest under pressure for 5-10 minutes.

• Safely depressurize the whipper and then strain out the infused pith pieces which should be colored now and discard the colored water (or save for the next batch).

• Place the moist and colored piths between a few pieces of paper towel and press until dry. (Properly blued piths should look like this (picture 3))

• Cut the pith into the desired shape. I’ll do my best to explain the steps in this reference video. (Again, if you’re worried about staining your fingers, wear some gloves!) (And here's an image as well (picture 4))

  • With the pith aligned vertically, cut a small diagonal slit on the bottom of the peel. Start from the center and cut up towards the right (this cut is where you will thread the pith back into itself)

  • Cut longer diagonal slits up the left side of the pith starting at the center and cutting all the way through the left side. (these are the “quills”) Keep making these cuts until you’ve reached about the top of the pith. The final cut should leave you with a piece that should be thin enough to fit through the first cut you made.

  • Cut one long slice up the right side of the pith, and be careful not to cut off any “quills”! (this cut is how the garnish will sit on the glass)

  • Optionally you can cut the “quill” pieces to be a bit more triangular for a more Sonic-like effect. I used some culinary scissors for this type of trimming. (Spikey quills picture 5)

  • Take the final “quill” cut and thread it through the first cut. You’ll essentially fold the whole pith into a circle. Threading it through will help it keep its shape. (In the attached picture 6, thread the top "quill" through cut #1)

  • Place the garnish on the edge of a highball glass through that long cut that you made, and you’re done!

I would recommend prepping these garnishes 1-2 hours before mixing several drinks only because they tend to dehydrate and shrivel up within a day. You can definitely use the dehydrated garnish, but I personally like the slightly plump version a bit better. Here’s a reference picture of a bunch of ‘em that shriveled up during my workshopping process.

Yet Another Small Rant on Blue Curaçao in Drinks

I’ll give some closing thoughts regarding my critique of blue curaçao in recipes (for I feel I must continue explaining myself as these blogs progress to further flesh out my inner dialogue). Using blue curaçao locks you into adding sweet orange flavor to a drink. If a drink needs to be blue it doesn’t necessarily also need to have citrus flavor (such as in the Sea Salt Ice Cream Cocktail for instance which is intended to taste salty and vanilla-forward). Blue curaçao is generally blue because of artificial dyes anyway, so if the end drink is going to be blue then I’m of the opinion now that using blue food dye is acceptable if it continues to serve the inspiration of the drink. Granted, if a blue (or combined green) color serves the inspiration and a sweet orange flavor serves the drink’s taste then I see no problem with using blue curaçao. My gripe is that I see a lot of recipes that look blue and I almost immediately know it’s going to be citrus-forward or tropical, and that kinda ruins the fun for me, ya know? Thanks for coming to my TED talk!

Non-Alcoholic Version

Sonic’s mocktail attempts to mimic the flavor of the cocktail version by leaning more into the peach notes but without the alcohol. The savory notes present in the cocktail are present in the mocktail by using some tomato water instead of alcoholic barley shochu. More details on the blog page!

Flavor Analysis

Peach-forward, sweet, savory and effervescent. Light notes of fresh pear and a mild tonic bitterness.