Forget the finger sandwiches and fancy china—therapeutic and packed with flavor, tea can stir up your cocktail game well past afternoon. And no, we’re not talking about the blasphemous Long Island Iced Tea. (Sorry, but we stopped drinking those in college.) More NYC mixologists are infusing or simply mixing various spirits with ancient leafy blends. There are even a few tea-infused products on the market, like Zen Green Tea Liqueur, Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka, or Voyant Chai Creme Liqueur. Why should tea be our bag, baby? We asked Jono Moratis, wine and spirits director for The Glazier Group, who created an entire menu of tea-infused cocktails at Monkey Bar, to steep us in the subject.
Tea is high in tannins—what makes tea a good choice for a special ingredient in cocktails? Are some teas better than others? Tea really gives a cocktail structure and depth—it’s something different but familiar. One of the reasons tea works well in cocktails is because of the tannins naturally found in tea. Cocktails can sometimes be sour or bitter, but the tea’s tannins cut through the acidity. Any type of tea works—it’s more of a personal preference—green tea is my personal favorite for cocktails.
Do you have any advice for infusing alcohol with tea at home? It’s all about experimentation, but you must choose a very high-quality liquor to infuse. Unlike infusing alcohol with fruit, which acquires a sweet taste very easily, tea-infused alcohol picks up more of the tea’s scent than flavor. It’s really trial and error—choose a tea flavor and soak the equivalent of three-four tea bags of loose tea in the alcohol for about four hours. You’ll notice the color will begin to change and the aroma will intensify. Try not to leave the tea in the alcohol longer than eight hours, otherwise it will start to get bitter.
Tea is said to promote relaxation, be high in antioxidants, and help with digestion—do you think alcohol adds or subtracts tea's "curing" effects? Tea-infused alcohol probably has more “curing” effects than alcohol that is not infused with tea. For the most part, though, I think the health benefits of tea are canceled out by alcohol’s properties.
Tea has been used in punch since the 1500s—why do you think it is trendy in cocktails again? Tea, in general, is very trendy right now and it never really was. Almost any day of the week, you can find something published about the health benefits—both physical and mental—of tea. So at Monkey Bar, we took classic cocktails and made them more exciting by using tea-infused alcohol.
