First things first: the lychee is not a nut. It used to be called a nut, for reasons that might elude anyone who’s tasted a lychee dish or drink before seeing one au naturel.
They do sort of resemble hazelnuts in a way, with a thick peel that looks like the hide of a desert-dwelling reptile, only dolled up in a tropical, blushing red. And like the shell of a boiled peanut, that peel does pop satisfyingly between the teeth when you shuck a lychee to get at the juicy goodness inside.
The large seed can also be roasted like a chestnut, but that’s not what we’re after. It’s the pale, pearlescent, super-sweet flesh that makes this Asian fruit so sought after around the world.
Unlike chayotes – aka mirlitons, sou-sous or chokos – the lychee tends to always be called “lychee” in every country that falls in love with it – but spellings vary, from “leechee” to “litchi” to “lìzhī” or “荔枝”. That last spelling is how the fruit is known by some of the first people to ever make a drink with it. Lychee wine, or “荔枝酒, lìzhījiǔ,” is not only a drink that’s older than the United States, it’s actually older than the country of England, being cultivated and fermented in China at least as far back as the Tang Dynasty.
In Florida, the fruit doesn’t go back so many centuries. It's kind of the new kid on the block. On the other hand, today, if you want to see rows of trees laden with succulent, red lychees, you can simply drive out to the Redlands … or down to Rancho Patel, chef Niven Patel’s farm in Homestead. If you’d rather sample the goods without the drive, head over to Patel’s new restaurant, Mamey, inside the THesis Hotel Miami in Coral Gables. The menu relies on produce from Rancho Patel, and the bartender will also mix up a Lychee Blossom. That’s a cocktail made with Patel’s lychees mixed with Ketel One vodka, St. Germaine liqueur, wildflower honey and lemon.
Town Kitchen & Bar, less than a mile southwest from THesis, is another option. There, you can sip on the Town Lychee Martini, made from a similar blend of ingredients: lychee purée with Spring 44 vodka, elderflower liqueur and triple sec. The results, however, are strikingly different, yet equally pleasing.
Both drinks are more or less sweet versions of the martini, a cocktail based on a strong spirit – gin or vodka – with a dash of something dry and aromatic, like vermouth or a floral liqueur. And, with their blend of astringent and sweet, both taste like the best of summer.
Where oranges were once the flavor of Florida’s sunshine, a broad survey of Miami’s cocktail landscape today is enough to make the Biscayne Tippler believe that lychees could be the new kings of the South Florida scene.
Local experiments don’t stop at the lychee martini. At Mayami Wynwood, The Queen Cocktail builds a new kind of margarita using lychee purée as the star ingredient.
(1 Hotel South Beach)
A Flock of Seagulls is a gin-based lychee cocktail served at Watr on South Beach.
At KAO Bar & Grill, a Lychee Duke takes another traditional cocktail in a new direction with tequila and a hint of ginger.
As a fruit with a floral aroma and a faint astringent overtone, the lychee also blends well with the botanicals in gin. One delicious example is served at Watr, the bar at 1 Hotel South Beach. A Flock of Seagulls might have a very 1980s name, but the flavor is from another time, balanced between Hendricks gin and Moet Ice, with sweetness from lychees and a refreshing, bitter complexity from aloe vera and cucumber.
Of course, since the lychee is a fruit with roots in Asia, one might expect it to appear on the menus of Asian restaurants like Tanuki, where the new River Landing location pours a Violet Geisha, a drink as pleasing to the eye as it is to the tastebuds. It’s made with cloudy nigori sake and lychee juice with additional striking color from butterfly-pea flower extract. Like the Town Lychee Martini, it comes garnished with a whole fruit for snacking while you’re sipping.
Hutong, a Northern Chinese outpost in Brickell, serves lychees in a more complex flavor combination that relies on the unusual “ma” property of Sichuan peppercorns, a kind of spicy, tongue-numbing quality that is said to open the tastebuds to more flavors.
(Okeydokey Miami)
A Bye-Fe Lychee cocktail at Okeydokey on SW Eighth Street brings together a world of flavors – from tart grapefruit to spicy pepper liqueur – in one delicious glass./Okeydokey Miami
One of the most interesting uses of lychees in the Biscayne Corridor comes from the humbly named Okeydokey on SW Eighth Street, where they pour a drink that is part margarita, part Hemingway daiquiri and wholly unique: spicy, tart, sweet and earthy all at once. The Bye Fe-Lychee cocktail feels like Giffard Piment d’Espelette liqueur is the secret ingredient, but that dash of spicy Caribbean pepper is blended subtly with Casa Noble reposado tequila, Bushido sake, lemon juice, grapefruit juice and lychee purée.
(Tanuki)
The Violet Geisha at Tanuki gets its color from butterfly-pea flowers and its flavor from lychees.
Lychees are a small and simple fruit, but they open the door to endless combinations. At home, the simplest way to start playing with them in your drinks might be to find canned or jarred ones (with the large seeds removed) at an Asian grocery, put them in a blender and use the resulting purée in a cocktail or smoothie the same way you would a simple syrup.
Lychees are every bit as sweet, but with a floral perfume that sets off just enough of an acid tartness to be infinitely interesting. Try them with gin or with ginger ale. Try swapping them into a piña colada or blended daiquiri. There might be a way to use them in an old fashioned, at least as a garnish if nothing else. If you haven’t welcomed them to the neighborhood yet, perhaps it’s time you do.
QUEEN COCKTAIL
(Mayami)
Mayami’s Queen Cocktail is a margarita made with lychee purée, served with a berry-salted rim.
From Mayami Wynwood
INGREDIENTS
· 4 ounces lychee purée
· 3 ounces Tequila Jimador
· 1 ounce lime juice
· 1 ounce triple sec
· 1/2 ounce agave
· Berry salt for garnish
· Dried lime slice for garnish
· Orchid flower for garnish
METHOD
· Add lychee tequila, lime juice, triple sec and agave to shaker with ice; shake and strain into large glass. Garnish with a berry salt rim, dried lime slice and orchid flower.
LYCHEE DUKE
From KAO Bar & Grill
INGREDIENTS
· 2 ounces tequila reposado
· 1 ounce schnapps
· 1 ounce lychee juice
· 1 ounce lime juice
· 1 ounce ginger tktktktktk
· Lychee on skewer for garnish
METHOD
· Mix ingredients in shaker with ice until chilled; strain over ice into an old fashioned glass and garnish with skewered lychee.
COMFORTABLY NUMB
(Hutong)
The Comfortably Numb at Hutong serves lychees with honey, Thai chilis and tongue-numbing Sichuan peppercorns.
From Hutong
INGREDIENTS
· 1.7 ounces Stoli Vanilla vodka
· 1/2 ounce Giffard Lichi-li (a lychee liqueur)
· .85 ounce lime juice
· 1/2 ounce honey syrup
· 1 dried Thai chili segment
· 1 tablespoon crushed Sichuan peppercorns for rimming glass
· 1 whole Thai chili for garnish
METHOD
· Add vodka, lychee liqueur, lime juice, honey syrup and dried chili to shaker with ice; shake vigorously to chill and combine.
· Double-strain into martini glass rimmed with crushed peppercorns, then garnish with fresh Thai chili pepper.