Cocktails with Cloves
Cloves are the dried, unopened flower buds of the clove tree, used whole or ground as a warm, intensely pungent spice.
How it's used
Eugenol dominates anything a clove is put near. The bud is 15 to 20% essential oil by weight, and that oil is around 80% eugenol — an unusually high load for a spice. Two or three whole cloves is the working count for a mulled drink; one is enough in anything short. They keep extracting the whole time they sit, so they must come out before the drink turns medicinal. Stud them into a citrus wheel for mulled wine or a toddy so they can be lifted out in one move.
Substitutes for Cloves
Ground cloves work: about ¼ teaspoon replaces 3 whole cloves. Ground spice cannot be fished out, so tie it in a cheesecloth bag or strain the drink through cheesecloth or a coffee filter. Whole allspice berries also work, one berry per clove, and taste a little gentler.
Ground cloves
The same spice, already ground: it releases its flavor fast and stays in the drink as fine grit unless strained.
Allspice
A dried fruit whose aroma also recalls cinnamon and nutmeg. Eugenol gives both spices most of their warmth, and this one tastes rounder.
Storage
Whole cloves keep for years sealed and dark — two to four, by the extension-service figures — and the test is aroma rather than texture: if the smell has faded, so has the oil. Ground clove is worth checking at six months and replacing when it stops smelling of clove, and it is worth buying in the smallest jar sold.
