A refreshing zero waste cocktail made with carrot juice, apple brandy and apple kombucha

Low waste or zero waste is a buzz word that's on everyone's lips now, all in the name of sustainability. When it comes to drinks making, adopting a sustainable practice is easier when you cross over ingredients with the kitchen. That means, thinking a bit more holistically and choosing ingredients that would work not just for a cocktail but that you can utilise in food at the same time. The idea is that you throw away as little as possible.

Being conscious of your carbon footprint also means using produce that is in season and where possible, grown locally - as it happens, at the time of devising this cocktail, it was winter in Sydney so root vegetables abound in farmers markets and grocery stores. For this cocktail, we used the warming combination of carrot and ginger, which we juiced fresh. We also decided to stay local with the alcohol and paired the carrot and ginger juice with a Tasmanian made apple brandy from the guys at Charles Oates Distilling topped up with a splash of apple kombucha to seal in the carrot-apple-ginger combo.

The carrot pulp was then partly used in a bolognese sauce to thicken it (didn't your mother play this trick on you when you were a kid to make you eat your veggies?). The remainder of the carrot pulp was laid out on an oven tray and slowly dehydrated (which really means you put the oven on low heat and let it dehydrate the carrot). Once done, we then ground up the dehydrated carrot to make it like carrot dust.  We also used the zest from the lemon and the remainder of the juice in another pasta dish.

For the garnish, we used honey to paint the outline of lips on the outside of the glass then pressed the glass against the carrot dust to create the illusion of a lipstick smear on the glass. The effect really came together and we have to say, not half bad!

How to make the Ginger Kiss Cocktail

Ingredients

• 60ml Charles Oates Distilling Apple Brandy

• 90ml freshly juiced carrot and ginger juice

• 20ml lemon juice

• 20ml simple syrup

• Splash Remedy Drinks apple kombucha (about 30ml)

Make the garnish for the glass as per instructions above.

Shake all ingredients over ice, except for kombucha. Strain into coupe glass that is garnished with the carrot lipstick smear and top up with kombucha.