Recipe: A little something to play with...Chili Syrup!

I've been working with one of our bartenders on signature drink development and the process has lead to some fun creations. I usually come up with a novel ingredient and the bartenders make drinks around what I give them. This one has been used more than any others in their experiments:

Chili syrup:

1.5 cup sugar
1.5 cup water
2 t. Paprika
1 t. Cayenne (This is the part where you can go nuts creatively, I've used small amounts of habanero powder, jalapeno powder, and other chili powders instead and in varied amounts. This is just a good start.)
4 t. Crushed Red Peppers (Pizza Pepper)
2 t. Chili Powder (The mixed stuff that everyone tells you not to use)

Boil the water and sugar to make a simple syrup.
Add the powders, whisk and boil for about 3 minutes.
Strain through a cheesecloth or extremely fine strainer while still hot. Chili powder can be gritty otherwise. The syrup should be an evil blood red color.
Allow to cool before using.

The peppers you use control the heat and where it "Gets You" in the end result. I do not suggest chipotle or ancho peppers it just doesn't want to work. The habanero syrup was almost too hot to use, but the novelty of it may inspire some kind of tough guy tropical drink. These syrups can be used to make "Fire Cracker" sundaes with rad hots and vanilla ice cream.

My drink recipe (No accurate amounts, sorry)

half glass mango puree
couple spoonfuls chili syrup or 1 long pour
soda water to the top
3 or 4 crushed mint leaves on top

stir with the straw you're using and get back to work

I make this while I'm working, so its always made fast and usually drank from an "Uncle Alligator" type of kids cup. Health code says drinks in a kitchen have to be plastic and have lids on them.

The bartenders are working on a drink that uses a cilantro infused vodka I came up with and this syrup. I'm curious as to what you guys might think.

[ Edited by: MinnesotaChef 2008-09-24 16:45 ]

When I was in Nevada a while back a friend turned me onto this drink.

Iguano
1/3 Hot pepper infused tequila
1/3 Margarita mix
1/3 Orange juice

Serve in an old fashioned glass filled with crushed ice and garnish with a pickled Tabasco pepper skewered on a long toothpick or drink stir.

To make hot pepper tequila: you roast or grill 6 large Jalapeno peppers, cut them in half lengthwise and insert into a 750mL bottle of good amber colored tequila with a few shots poured out of it.

You could make a better but similar tasting drink like this:

Good tequila
Your hot pepper sugar syrup
Fresh squeezed lime juice
Orange juice

If you work on it for a few hours, I'm sure you can get the recipe just perfect.

I'm not much of a drinker but I am a chilihead and I like your Chili Syrup idea! Hot and sweet is an excellent combination, they say the capsaicin enhances the taste buds so things taste more intense. One of my favorites is jalapeño brownies, finely mince 1 or 2 jalapeños (without the seeds) and add it to the brownie batter. Tabasco Chocolate Balls is another good one.

How about a Hot Little Kiss.

Try Besito Caliente. You can find it down near the bottom of this page.

It's a New Mexico blackberry and habanero sauce.

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I probably should also have mentioned that this is the key ingredient in the Chile 'Rita margarita of La Posta de Mesilla restaurant in Las Cruces NM. It has developed some renown over the years and people order Besito Caliente from all over the place just to make those margaritas.

I'm not a big fan of tequila, so I use it in other concoctions and some culinary applications. It's pretty good over ice cream.

[ Edited by: The Gnomon 2008-09-25 07:26 ]

I just made a batch and I'm sampling it over vanila ice cream, pretty good with a little kick to it :blush: I think it would be good in hot chocolate

MC, how about adding "Chili Syrup" to the name of this thread to make it easier to find later?

Oddly enough, I have a recipe for spicy hot chocolate mix. I'll post it when I find it.

Right now the bartenders are sitting on a batch hot pepper infused vodka for a bloody mary we're working on. We found that adding carrots to the infusion acts as an additonal filter to take a little of the edge off the vodka. Also, running cheap vodka through a Britta filter about four times makes it really hard to tell from very expensive brands.

When the infusion is done we take the peppers and carrots after draining and make a really amazing vodka pasta sauce. The small peppers can be eaten on their own as a bar snack. They can be set on fire and used as a garnish. A fire eater cocktail maybe?

Today I did grilled scallops with chili syrup. Not too bad.

I found out that my drink of choice can be used as a glaze for chicken and pork.

It was a little slow at work today.

I like the cock

brand chili chicken sauce.

It's really cheap, readily available, and very tasty!

Spicy & chocolate are fantastic together, I'm looking forward to that recipe, Minnesota Chef.

I make my simple vodka pepper infusion by slicing up some jalapenos and filling a tall jar with the two ingredients. When I use some of the vodka up I just top it up with a little more. I keep it in the fridge and use it mainly in rosé sauces.

Firecracker cornbread is a favorite in this household, I add whatever peppers are seasonally available and colourful.

Habanero sorbet really messes with your head. Its a surreal experience. I served it once in a shallow dish that contained brandy that was on fire with the lights dimmed. It was probably my most confusing creation.

while as a historian, i hate using wiki as reference material...their info on this is pretty good and conscise...

Chocolate residue found in several jars from the site of Puerto Escondido in Honduras, from around 1100 B.C., is the earliest evidence to date of the use of cacao. [7] The evidence found indicates that the earliest use of cacao seems to have been as an alcoholic beverage. Slightly later, around 600-400 B.C. there are traces from jars in Belize. An early Classic (460-480 A.D.) period Maya tomb from the site of Rio Azul, Guatemala, had vessels with the maya glyph for cacao on them and had residue of a chocolate drink. The Aztecs associated chocolate with Xochiquetzal, the goddess of fertility. In the Americas, chocolate was consumed in a bitter and very spicey drink called xocoatl, often seasoned with vanilla, chile pepper, and achiote (which we know today as annatto). Xocoatl was believed to fight fatigue, a belief that is probably attributable to the theobromine content. Chocolate was an important luxury good throughout pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, and cocoa beans were often used as currency. Other chocolate drinks combined it with such edibles as maize gruel (which acts as an emulsifier) and honey.

so the concept has been around for a little while....though the whole "sweet/hot" concept is fairly recent here in the US.as for the spicy tequila,has anyone tried using serrano chiles in it?

That Chili Syrup is damn good on pancakes too!

Minnesota, it's winter here now (forecasted to get all the way down to 57 degrees tonight!) so I fired up some Mexican hot chocolate with your chili syrup in it. I don't think I'll ever drink regular hot chocolate again! :)

Try it on grits. That's the new favorite of my dishwashers.