Completed Infusion and First Impressions

Here is Recipe "A" immediately after mixing.  Note the vibrancy of the herbs.

Precisely three days after the infusion was begun, my old pal Johnny Iguana was over to dine.  As he was the source of much of my inspiration for this project, we took a bit from each recipe to see how they were progressing.  Below a photo of the two:

Recipe "A" is on the left, "B" on the right.  Note that the original "B" recipe did not call for saffron, rendering the resulting infusion very pale in colour.

We tasted the two and they were markedly different:

• Recipe "A" was the more balanced of the two.  Only three days old, this recipe definitely had more depth in flavour, and an overall more rounded character.
• Recipe "B" was quite a bit more hot and sharp than "A".  The predominant flavor (apart from the brandy) was the lemon, which if you will recall, was added in the form of three thin slices of whole lemon.

Following this tasting, I made a command decision to add saffron to the "B" recipe as well, so that the neon yellow I have come to associate with hierbas would be present in the finished product.  This is reflected in the recipe listed above.


Our curiosity sated, some initial impressions made, and a small tweak behind us, we moved on to other tasks as the hierbas rested.