- Today we're gonna learn how to flame an orange peel, stay tuned. (static crackles) (cork pops) Welcome to Common Man Cocktails. I'm your host Derrick Schommer. Today, we're gonna focus on how do you properly flame an orange peel or an orange zest or
citrus peel of any type? Today, I'm gonna create
a Maple Whisky Sour and I'm going to use an orange
'cause I want to be able to get that nice caramelized loveliness. Let's start by getting ourselves a nice dime-sized piece of orange peel. And what I wanna do is
I wanna get just enough to not take any of the real flesh off. Pith's not going to make a difference because we're not necessarily
dealing with the pith, we're dealing with just the flame. If you don't like the
amount of pith you've got, you could cut it down a little bit. To make this video, I partnered
up with Cocktail Crate and we're gonna use their
Maple Whisky Sour product to be able to build ourselves a very kinda spirit-forward whisky sour. And I'm using the Maple Whisky Sour because it's cold outside and I need something that's
spirit-forward warming and I love whisky. So we're gonna do one part of the mixer, one part of the whisky, shake with plenty of ice, done. I'm just gonna do two ounces of each. (shaker clanging) So Cocktail Crate's owner, Alex, wanted to be able to make mixer
that was super simple to do, didn't require a lot of effort, didn't require a lot of intimidation, sort of the Common Man
Cocktails theme of doing things. For this I'd use wood matches. Using a BIC lighter looks kinda bad. Some people have said the
butane can spray from your oils into your drink and then you
could have some butane flavor. So I've never tasted that specifically, but better safe than sorry. So we're just gonna use
regular old matchstick matches. So what you're gonna do is
you're gonna warm the peel, get some of the wax to melt off, bring the oils to the center, and then you're going to just squish it over your drink. And that's really it. You don't wanna do it so that the fire lands into the drink, 'cause that's not cool. You could get a little burnt action. You want that caramelization
to spray forward so keep it outside your glass
and bring it in that way. Then once you're done, take
some of that nice warm peel and rub it along the insides, maybe a little on the
outside of your glass. Some bartenders will suggest
if it's in a stemware, to also run the stem so it
gets on the customer's hands. Either way. Now you can discard or what I'm gonna do is throw in my peel into my drink so I have something to go with and then we can taste it. It's got a nice, lovely
orange smell to it, just like that zest of the orange. And aroma is one of the
biggest key components to cocktails or tastes in general. So you wanna make sure you
bring in that loveliness. Citrus, maples, a little bit of that acidity structure, but definitely carrying
through the Basil Hayden, which is one of our winners
of our blind tastings that we've done. So I wanted to make sure to
pair with a really good bourbon. One of the other key
components to Cocktail Crate is they don't use a lot of sugar, so it's about half of what
you see from a normal mixer. So you're gonna get much more
of the spirit coming out. You're gonna get some of
those lovely nuances of oils, without being distracted
by too much sugar, which if you've ever
watched any of our videos with cocktail author Warren Bobrow, he's a big fan of less
sugar and more spirit. And, of course, it's Black Friday, so if you'd like to you can
go to cocktailcrate.com, save 15%, use the coupon code CMC15. I suggest getting two bottles, one for you, one for a gift, or two for you as a gift to yourself. Now go start flaming your orange peels. Remember, first time you
might not get it perfect. Try over and over again. Add some practice. It's going to increase your bar flare. People are gonna have their minds blown watching you light fires. Plus it adds a nice caramelized
citrus flavor to it. For me the key has always
been to warm that peel first, that makes the oils
come right to the center and makes a bigger flame. If you don't do that,
your mileage may vary. Like, share and subscribe, 'cause we're teaching you how to drink and light things on fire. And that's always fun. Oh, hey. Did you guys know there's a little bell next to the subscribe
button on all our videos and on our channel main page? If you click that bell, you can actually receive notifications every time a new episode goes live, daily. But for now, just click on one
of these two guys right here and watch those videos. It's a good time.