Hey guys? Help me brainstorm how to make a new drink I'm kicking around.

[xiphias]

It's called the "Boba Libre".

See, the "Cuba Libre" is the official bartender name for a rum and coke. "Boba" are those tapioca pearls that you get in bubble tea.

And it's not quite working yet. I can't get the texture of the boba right. I may just need to practice with normal boba for a while.

So, you boil the tapioca pearls for, like, 25 minutes, then you let them cool for half an hour, and they'll supposedly stay appropriately chewy for several hours after that.

I've been doing the boiling in rum instead of water, and then putting the rum-soaked boba into a glass and pouring Coke over it.

It's almost working. But the texture is just a little off.

Any thoughts? The pot the boba boil in is sealed tightly to keep any alcohol vapors from escaping, and to keep oxygen out, so that the whole thing doesn't just catch on fire -- and it's a glass lid, so I can watch the alcohol condense on the top of the pot and drip back down in.

Should I be boiling the boba longer, assuming that the mixture is boiling at, say, 200 degrees F (93 C), instead of 212 F / 100 C? (Alcohol has a boiling point of 173 F/ 78.3 C, and distilled liquors are usually 40% alcohol, 60% water, so would that mean that it's boiling at about 200 degrees? Or would it mean that the alcohol is floating around as a vapor, and that then the water boils normally?)

Does anyone know anything about the specific chemistry of tapioca?

Comments

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Hm, ok.

From my high school chemistry, I suspect that if you are boiling stuff with alcohol in it, you're going to be cooking the alcohol off first and then boiling just the water. This is how fractional distillation works-- the solution will first boil at 173F until all the alcohol is gone, and then heat up to 212F. So, you will probably end up with rum-flavored boba with little or no alcohol content. (Yeah, less science than the first reply, but there you go...)

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Except that the alcohol is condensing on the pot lid and dripping back down in -- as the lid is glass, I can see it happening, and I can tell it's alcohol and not just water steam because, well, it LOOKS like alcohol and not water. You know, legs and tears and all that stuff. Condensing alcohol looks . . . shiner, smoother, oilier than condensing water.

There's alcohol in them boba. I nibbled on a couple. There's alcohol in them.

[solipsistnation.livejournal.com]

Cool. I didn't think about it condensing and dripping back in. That's neat.

Alcoholic boba is a brilliant idea...