The Joy of Zesting

My citrus zester finally arrived.

A citrus zester is a nifty little tool, highly recommendable for any cocktail enthusiast--in fact, border-line indispensable--but a pain-in-the-ass to acquire. Here are a few points worth mentioning:

1) If you want to make any of a variety of pretty looking garnishes, you'll need a citrus zester.

2) However, all the places where you would think to go buy one do not have one.

3) Worse yet, the employees at those places do not even know what a citrus zester is.

4) When you do finally happen upon one, it will probably be the wrong one.

This is the right one. In

addition to its large, ergonomic handle, the OXO zester has an over-sized, centrally located cutting edge which will consistently produce the perfect peel. Most of the other zesters I chanced upon over the course of my quest (and you can go ahead and ignore Macy's, Williams-Sonoma, Bed Bath and Beyond, and so forth for all the good they'll do you) were of no use, providing only thin, broken strips of zest of absolutely no aesthetic worth, marginally passable for use in a kitchen, that nasty and most private of places, but wholly inappropriate for use in any sphere of higher purpose and dignity, i.e. a bar.

The use of the peel in mixology does serve a culinary purpose, as it contributes the flavor of citrus oils to the drink, but this does not matter if the end product is not presentable.

This guy does a fantastic job of explaining the greater purpose of zesting and demonstrating its technique (which involves, in short, holding the fruit over the glass as you peel in order to spritz the oils into the drink, then twisting the peel over a bar spoon to manage a spiral shape). But I feel accomplished enough having simply raised the subject of zesting in a blog.

The most gratifying part of all this is that I can now append a garnish to that bare Negroni I introduced in my first post. And so I'll provide here in close-up, for congratulatory oohs and ahs: