Why You Should be “Densing” Your Daiquiri

Philip Dizard, who owns Tin’s Shanghai Diner with his wife Mercury Tin, has always thought of the Daiquiri as “the bartender’s omelette.” It’s “an incredibly simple thing to make, but a remarkably difficult thing to perfect,” says Dizard. “I love that kind of simplicity because it invites an almost endless pursuit of refinement.”

That pursuit led Dizard to a process called “densing,” which he’d been following online. The technique was developed by Iain McPherson, founder of the lauded Panda & Sons in Edinburgh, Scotland. McPherson is known for his mad-science tinkering and innovation; in his bar lab, dubbed the “Brain Melting Society,” he has invented influential techniques like “sous pression,” “switching” and “cryo concentration.”  

Using a vacuum blender to integrate oils into liquids, densing boosts the texture of drinks. McPherson likens the process to emulsification, but without the need for binders or thickeners, and its effects to fat-washing, though this method captures and retains more aromas. 

“When you express citrus oils over [a Martini or Old-Fashioned], that beautiful orange or lemon aroma is incredibly vibrant at first, but it gradually fades as you drink,” he explains. “With densing, we can integrate those oils directly into the spirit, meaning the aroma remains consistent from the first step to the last.” There are also visual results from densing: The process creates “that beautiful louche effect you see when adding water to absinthe or non-chill-filtered whisky,” he says. Incorporating fats like olive oil plays with color, too, softening a bright red Negroni to a pastel peachy pink, for example. It’s an unexpected, but welcome look in a sea of clarified cocktails. 

Here’s how it works: Everything goes into the vacuum blender, which is essentially a blender that removes air while blending; this is typically used to prevent oxidation and create smoother, more consistent textures. McPherson says it’s important to keep all liquids, fat and spirit, around the same temperature—he suggests between 40 and 60 degrees centigrade, or 104 to 140 degrees Fahrenheit—and that using about 0.5 to 2.5 percent fat is the optimal proportion. After a run (or two or three) of the blender, the fat becomes so wholly absorbed into the spirit that they become one inseparable liquid.

McPherson has been an open book with his techniques. “When I saw some of the videos Iain uploaded online,” Dizard recalls, “I sent one to [Tin’s bar director Bowen Kirkwood] and said, ‘What is a vacuum blender and how fast can we get one?’ By the time he responded to my text, I’d already found and bought it.”

The Dako-Ri is an ode to Dako Tea, a tea shop that Dizard and Tin visited on their honeymoon in Yunnan, China. It specializes in a drink he calls “remarkable” with tea, honey, lemongrass and aromatic local citrus. To capture the memory of that drink in a Daiquiri, Tin’s taps fresh lemongrass in a rum infusion, a syrup made with Mao Jian tea, fresh lime juice and—thanks to densing—olive oil.

Though the Dako-Ri uses a cutting-edge technique, it was important to Dizard to maintain the familiar format of the classic: rum, lime, sugar. “Anything else, and it can be a great drink, but not a Daiquiri,” says Dizard. While he did “take a little bit of liberty,” he stuck close to the script. The lemongrass infusion brings grassiness and extra brightness, and the tea contributes a toasted sticky rice flavor with a hint of savoriness in the finish. The olive oil provides a beautifully rounded texture.

“Some of the best versions of Daiquiris I’ve had skew a little sweeter than they technically should be” in order to get the right mouthfeel, says Dizard. On the other hand, “a lot of contemporary interpretations take it really lean, really acidic, often with an ounce of lime to three-quarters of an ounce of sweeter proportions. We flip that… and in combination with the olive oil emulsion, you get both the upfront [and] the acidity.”

For the Dako-Ri, Dizard pours all the ingredients into the vacuum blender, then reduces the atmospheric pressure inside the chamber, allowing the oil and other ingredients to emulsify. Dizard uses a one-percent olive oil proportion, by weight, in relation to the infused rum. In the vacuum blender, he sets the mix to have three-minute agitations with 30-second rests in between.

Why not just fat-wash the drink? For one, this method maintains the Daiquiri’s acidity. For another, “a fat-wash technique might take 12 to 14 hours, and might leave subtle residue,” Dizard says. Densing, meanwhile, “takes about 15 minutes.” The team can also produce larger batches of cocktails because the vacuum-blender emulsion creates a more stable, not separated, liquid. “I have a pint-glass tester of dense rum that’s been sitting for six months at ambient temperature,” says Dizard. “It hasn’t changed at all.”

A vacuum blender can cost anywhere from $350 to $2,000, but for Dizard, it’s a worthy investment. He says the tool could transform prep for other bar teams. Tin’s not only uses the blender for its densed Dako-Ri, but also to infuse olive oil into mezcal for its El Popular cocktail. “The prep time, refrigerator time and space and labor time saved is remarkable,” says Dizard.