(Ghosts of Saltmarsh) Thirst beckoned the group closer to the lake. The Drowned Forest had presented many foes so far and surely this body of water held secrets. But just a quick sip and then they could continue. As the adventurers crept closer to the dark body of water, something began to move.
The Water Elemental: A monster in the form of a turbulent wave that engulfs all in its path. For the adventurer unlucky enough to be caught in its whipping waters, they’ll need to quickly pass a strength check or slowly suffocate while being pummeled with bludgeoning blows from the wave.
Saltmarsh, and the areas surrounding it, is rife with danger. The Drowned Forest is no exception as it is a haven for all sorts of evil creatures. To give you an idea of how metal the Drowned Forest is, during the Saltmarsh session where the PCs encountered the Water Elemental the Elemental was one of literally six other encounters (one of which included a young black dragon). The Drowned Forest doesn’t mess around.
The Tiny Water Elemental “cocktail” fortunately lacks the monstrosity of the killer wave from the campaign (assuming you don’t find the bastardization of a traditional cocktail a monstrous move).
Visually, it’s fucking cool. It looks like a meal from a futuristic science-fiction movie where the characters get all their nutrients from aerated foams, freeze dried pellets, and liquid-filled bubbles. You can even gently pick these spheres up and cheers them.
In terms of taste, it’s a mouthful of lemon-ginger gin. It’s not bad but you don’t necessarily want to drink these spheres all night. They’re more of a do once and enjoy the experience type of cocktail.
The first time I made them I used the Old Fashioned recipe posted by Cocktail Chemistry. It’s an excellent walk-through that I highly recommend. For this post, I found a recipe from Modernist Pantry. I haven’t tried all the recipes posted there but the gin cocktail recipe turned out excellent.
I’m not going to candy-coat it, this cocktail is a doozy to make. First, you’re going to need to get Sodium Alginate and Calcium Lactate Gluconate, either an ice cube tray or half-sphere molds, and a spoon with holes in it.
Second, it’s essentially a two-day process. After mixing the cocktail (with the Calcium Lactate Gluconate), you’ll need to let them freeze in the molds (overnight is best). Then when you make the Sodium Alginate bath, it will need at least an hour to sit and work out the bubbles (ideally it will be clear). Once the sodium alginate bath is ready, you’ll assemble the spheres.
Like traversing the god-forsaken Drowned Forest, it’s journey to make these tiny, encapsulated water elementals. But, if you’re a sucker for food that involves gastronomy, the outcome is so worth it.
Tiny Water Elemental
Ingredients
For the cocktail:
- 75g (2 ½ oz) Gin (Modernist Pantry calls for Empress, which I love, but I wanted these to be blue so I used Hendricks and a couple drops of blue food coloring)
- 45g (1 ½ oz) Ginger Simple Syrup (recipe below)
- 5g (1 tsp) Lemon Juice
- 0.5g (pinch) Salt
- 150g (5 oz) Water
- 4g (1 ¼ tsp) Calcium Lactate Gluconate
For the ginger syrup (ingredients below are half the amount called for on MP because I didn’t that much ginger simple):
- 1 cup Sugar
- 1 cup Water
- 1.5 oz Ginger, Sliced Thin
For the sodium alginate bath:
- 1 liter Distilled Water
- 5g (2 tsp) Perfected Sodium Alginate
Instructions:
- Make the ginger simple: Add sugar, water, and ginger to a small pot and boil for 3 minutes. Remove from heat and let the ginger steep for 10 minutes. Strain and let cool.
- Make the cocktail: Add all cocktail ingredients* to a blender and blend until the calcium lactate gluconate (“CLG”) dissolves (about 1 minute). Then, pour into your ice tray or molds. Let freeze (I stick them in the freezer overnight).
*I left the ingredients in grams because I use a scale to measure everything by weight. Since it involves chemistry, the measurements need to be pretty damn exact. I’ve made these before a bit more haphazardly and they were less spheres and more frozen mush piles.
- Make an extra cocktail mixture WITHOUT the CLG. This should not be frozen as it will serve as the method for storing the spheres once they’re done. Put this mixture in a mason jar and keep in the fridge until the spheres are ready to store.
- Make the sodium bath: Put distilled water* and sodium alginate in a large bowl and mix with an immersion blender**. Then let set for at least an hour (Cocktail Chemistry lets it set for 24 hours).
*I used a fresh Brita filter for this; I honestly don’t even know if that’s necessary but I didn’t wanna do this shit twice.
**If you don’t have an immersion blender, a regular blender will do. Just be sure it’s squeaky clean from the cocktail mix. The pour into a large bowl.
- Make your very own Water Elemental:
- Microwave the sodium alginate bath for about 2 minutes (You’ll want it warmed to about 125 degrees Fahrenheit to help the spheres liquify).
- Prepare two more bowls of plain, cold tap water.
- Remove the frozen cocktail spheres from the freezer and drop 1-3 into the sodium alginate bath at a time.
- Gently and slowly stir around the spheres to get the membrane to form. This will take about 2 minutes.
- Remove the sphere one at a time using your perforated spoon and rinse in a bowl of cold tap water (then rinse again). I included a sped up video of this process below.
- Store in the cocktail bath.
- You can’t just leave these out (they’ll disintegrate) or stacked on top of each other (they’ll burst). But, you can store them indefinitely in the same cocktail solution (minus the CLG).
The Bourbon Dragon 