A fig gives up almost no juice. It is pulp and pectin, and a press hands back half of what you put in. A pectinase enzyme takes the cell walls apart instead, and what comes off is clear fig liquid at nearly double the yield. Three sherries, that liquid, Peychaud's, crushed ice.
The drink
The classic cobbler is one sherry with muddled orange and berries over crushed ice. The fruit sits in the glass as pulp and the sherry disappears behind it.
Here the fruit goes in as clear liquid, so the sherry stays visible through the drink and the fig reads as flavour rather than texture. Peychaud's does the job the garnish tray usually does, at 1 ml.
The sherry is three, not one. Fino gives the saline flor lift, amontillado the nut in the middle, oloroso the weight underneath. All three are dry, so the fig cordial carries the sugar on its own.
It lands at 7% ABV, which puts it on the list next to the low-ABV section rather than in the cocktail column.
Finished-drink targets
ABV: 7%
Sugar: 80 g/L
Acid: 5 g/L, tartaric
Serve: 105 ml built over crushed ice, about 145 ml in the glass
The enzyme
Töufood Pectinäse, a pectinase powder from Aspergillus niger. It is cut with maltodextrin and sucrose, so the dose is higher than a liquid concentrate. Töufood's range is 0.1 to 5% of the product. Half a percent of the mash does figs in three hours.
Two conditions have to be right or nothing happens. The enzyme needs an aqueous medium, which is why the figs get blended with 200 g of water into a mash rather than dosed whole. And it needs an acid pH. Figs sit at pH 5.0 to 5.6, above the working range, so 4 g of tartaric goes into the mash before the enzyme does.
The dose is measured against the mash, not against the fruit. A kilo of figs plus the water and the acid makes about 1,200 g of mash, and 0.5% of that is 6 g.
The 500 g can works out at about $0.10 a gram, so a batch costs $0.60 of enzyme. The 100 g can is three times that per gram.
Prep: the clear fig cordial
Expect about 850 g of clear liquid off a kilo of figs. Pressing the same fruit without the enzyme gives roughly half.
Spec, per 1,000 g figs
1,000 g ripe Black Mission figs, stems off, quartered
200 g water
4 g tartaric acid, for the mash
6 g Töufood Pectinäse, 0.5% of the mash
125 g caster sugar, for the finished cordial
6 g tartaric acid, for the finished cordial
2 g salt, for the finished cordial
1. Blend the figs with the water to a smooth mash, about
1,200 g.
2. Stir the 4 g tartaric acid into the mash. Target
pH 4.5.
3. Disperse the Pectinäse in 20 g of the mash, then stir
it back through the batch.
4. Hold the mash sealed at 45°C for 3 hours, stirring once
an hour.
5. Strain through a chinois, then coffee filter.
6. Heat the clear liquid to 80°C, hold 2 minutes, ice
bath. This stops the enzyme.
7. Stir in the sugar, the 6 g tartaric acid and the salt,
cold.
Yield ~900 ml at 260 g/L sugar and 10 g/L acid.
20 serves at 45 ml. 2 weeks in the fridge.
The mash thins visibly at the hold and a clear layer lifts off the solids. Read Brix before anything alcoholic goes near it. Ethanol reads high on a refractometer.
The build
Spec, per serve
25 ml fino sherry
20 ml amontillado sherry
15 ml oloroso sherry
45 ml clear fig cordial
1 ml Peychaud's bitters, 2 dashes
1. Fill a wine glass with crushed ice.
2. Add the three sherries, the fig cordial and the
bitters.
3. Swizzle until the glass frosts.
4. Cap with fresh crushed ice. Straw. Half a fresh fig on
the rim.
Crushed ice adds about a quarter of the finished volume during the swizzle, which is what takes 105 ml of liquid to a 145 ml drink at 7%.
The rail bottle
The three sherries and the Peychaud's are all shelf stable, so they batch together and the blend gets made once instead of three pours a drink. The cordial is perishable and goes in at the pour.
Spec, per liter
410 ml fino sherry
330 ml amontillado sherry
245 ml oloroso sherry
15 ml Peychaud's bitters
Pour 60 ml a serve. 16 serves a liter.
Fridge, 3 weeks.
The fig cordial does not freeze, so plan the fig batch to the 2 week clock rather than holding fruit against a slow week.
The operator math
Per cordial batch, with figs at $5 a pound:
- Figs, 1,000 g: $11.00
- Sugar, 125 g: $0.15
- Töufood Pectinäse, 6 g from the 500 g can: $0.60
- Tartaric acid, 10 g: $0.30
That is $12.05 across 20 serves, so $0.60 of cordial in the glass. Add 60 ml of the sherry blend at $1.25, 1 ml of Peychaud's at $0.05, and $0.10 of fig and ice.
$2.00 a serve. On a $16 menu price that is a 13% pour cost.
The enzyme is what makes that number work. Without it the same kilo of figs yields half as much liquid, which puts the cordial at $1.20 a serve and the drink at $2.60 before anything else changes.
Where it goes wrong
- Mash stays thick after three hours: the pH never came down. Check it before the enzyme goes in, not after.
- Cordial hazes in the fridge: filtration was rushed. Chinois first, then coffee filter, and do not press the filter.
- Cordial keeps thinning in the bottle: the 80°C hold was skipped or short.
- Drink reads flat and sweet: figs vary from 14 to 20 °Bx. Read the cordial and adjust the tartaric to hold 10 g/L.
- Drink waters out in the glass: the ice was wet. Crushed ice from a machine holds; crushed ice sitting in a bin does not.
The clarification pillar on this site runs through agar and gravity. This is the third method, and the only one that raises yield while it clears. Prep of this kind, with the batch sheets and SOPs behind it, is what a prep lab engagement builds. If your low-ABV section is one spritz and a glass of wine, fifteen minutes will tell you what to put next to it.