Fun with butterfly pea flower

[MtRainier]

I boiled up 1/2 cup of flowers with 1 cup of water and let it steep for a while then collected the dark blue liquid and added some neutral to it so it would keep.

It's edible and also changes to pink color in low pH.

I added a very small amount to a batch of Odin's Easy Gin to make it light blue colored without affecting the taste. When you pour in the tonic it changes from blue to pink. It's really cool.

You can find the flowers on amazon.

[Expat]

Definitely love making gin and other tasty concoctions from the pea blossom

As you mentioned gin, it's definitely one of my favorites. Get some nice deep blue and the pH color change is a real party pleaser.

Here is a link to my most recent thread on that
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=75181

[MtRainier]

Hey cool! I hadn't seen that thread. I like some of the ideas there.

My father-in-law is a big gin guy. One Christmas I brought the small still to his house together with all of my botanicals and we made a batch of OEG spiked with other weird stuff. That's when we found out just how strong star anise is. I'm giving him a bottle of blue gin at Christmas this year.

[MtRainier]

Here is the gin by itself with ice

Here it is with tonic added

[StillerBoy]

So you have experimented with Expat's recipe/process..

Seem to have come out very good..

Mars

[seamusm53]

The flowers go a LONG way in terms of coloring and the deeper the color the less noticeable is the color change with addition of tonic water. The color appears to be a simple pH (acid-base) indicator. So less is more so to speak. It is also fun to add a few flowers to vodka - just use a strainer after overnight infusion. The flowers are also used to make a tea. Mehhh. Not gonna screw with making purple whiskey - at least not for manly consumption.

[dunluce]

So trying this out, definitely got a more purple shade than blue.....normal pH of the water around here can be up to 8.2 (ancient Creatceous seabed, lots of limestone).

I figured it would be more blue, then shade to a purple then pink as the pH lowers?

EDIT: Ok, so I checked, and the final distillate is about 3-4 on the pH scale. So that makes sense.

[subbrew]

I am perhaps two years from getting around to making a gin, but I need to remember this. "How to amaze your friends"

[contrahead]

(Picture using Expat's own gin bottle...)

I guess that hue is pretty close to a “Royal Blue”. I can temporarily get a similar hue of blue by using freeze-dried blueberries. A tablespoon of these will tint a bottle of white liquor, blue in about 20-30 minutes. But the color won't stay that way. The liquor will soon turn purple.

The only commercially common blue tinted liquor would be Blue Curacao; which is a lame- 24% ABV, sugary liqueur flavored with lemon peel. Its only apparent appeal is in its unusual color, which is caused by its being dyed with artificial Blue #1 (or Brilliant Blue FCF) food coloring.

I don't have any dried “Butterfly Pea Blossoms” handy at the moment, but I do have some idle white spirits and some dark red rose pedals on a bush or two outside, just now.

[Yummyrum]

My Brother in law drinks only that Blue gin . He showed me a neat trick .
You poor the tonic in the glass first . Then very slowly poor in a shot of pea flower Gin .
Gets a layer effect with clear at bottom , pink ,then Blue on top . Give it a swirl .

[stillness]

Ya, this looks like fun. Gonna do sometime. Just did a science project with the kids last week (covid homeschool). And we looked at PH using red cabbage. Just chopped it up and boiled it and got a deep purple solution. Then we threw random stuff in it to check PH. Here's the aftermath of colored glasses.

A little went a long ways. It worked best diluted. I think you could probably use it without imparting flavor. Another option to explore.
Ya, layering the colors based on density seems pretty cool. Also adding that to the list of things to try.

[Expat]

My Brother in law drinks only that Blue gin . He showed me a neat trick .
You poor the tonic in the glass first . Then very slowly poor in a shot of pea flower Gin .
Gets a layer effect with clear at bottom , pink ,then Blue on top . Give it a swirl .

Very nice, I'll have to give it a try!