What is acid adjusted pineapple juice?
Acid adjusted pineapple juice is fresh pineapple juice with citric and malic acid added to boost its acidity, giving it backbone and structure that pineapple juice doesn't have on its own.
Fresh pineapple varies a lot in sweetness and acidity depending on ripeness and variety. This technique makes the juice consistent batch to batch, and lets it stand in for a proper sour component in a cocktail rather than just adding sweetness and tropical flavour.
Why should I make acid adjusted pineapple juice?
This one isn't a buy-it-or-make-it choice, you can't pick up a bottle of it at the shop. It's a bartending technique rather than a product.
The case for doing it is consistency and balance. Plain pineapple juice is mostly sweet with a little tartness, and how much of each varies pineapple to pineapple. Adding a measured amount of citric and malic acid gives you a juice with real acidic structure every time, so a drink built around it tastes the same whether your pineapple was perfectly ripe or a bit under. It's what lets pineapple juice do a sour's job in a cocktail instead of just a sweetener's.
It's the backbone of our Ultimate Mai Tai, where it replaces the lime entirely.
Ingredients
- 100ml fresh pineapple juice
- 3.2g citric acid
- 2g malic acid
How to make it
- Prep time
- 2 minutes
- Cooking time
- None
- Total time
- 2 minutes
- 1Juice fresh pineapple and measure out 100ml.
- 2Weigh the citric acid and malic acid precisely. A small kitchen scale that reads to 0.1g makes a real difference here, this is the one step worth being fussy about.
- 3Combine the pineapple juice and both acids in a bottle or shaker.
- 4Shake or stir until the powders are fully dissolved. There shouldn't be any grit left.
Storing your acid adjusted pineapple juice
Store in the fridge in a sterilised, airtight bottle, same as fresh pineapple juice. It'll keep for about a week.
It won't last as long as a cooked syrup since there's no sugar or heat involved to help preserve it, so make it in small batches you'll actually get through.
