One Tool to Carbonate, Clarify, and Extract Flavor: Preshh!
Hi, Friends of Cocktails! What if you could make your own Sprite in just 30 minutes? You can even use the same method to carbonate cocktails and fruit, extract flavors with pressure, speed up clarification, smoke ingredients, preserve them, and more. All of this with just one tool: the Preshh Carbonation System.
You might remember Preshh from the fruit clarification episode, where we used it to chill, dilute and carbonate the entire drink. But since then, I've been testing what else I can do with it, and I've had a blast. I even talked to the creator of this system, to learn what it's capable of, and it turns out, carbonation is just one part of the story. Don't believe me? You can also come and try it for yourself… but more on that later.
If you need a refresher on what we're talking about today, here's a quick overview from Preshh starting with something we've already seen: carbonating a whole cocktail. That's what I did with the Carrot Clarified Cocktail in the fruit clarification episode, which got me hooked on using this whole system. I also could add the ice directly to the bottle, carbonate it, and shake until I had a perfectly chilled and sparkling cocktail, ready to serve with a lot less steps.
This is where the wide mouth in the system becomes really useful, especially when you're making cocktails in larger quantities. The Starter Kit comes with a 1-liter bottle, but you can also get a 2-liter version for larger batches. The whole Preshh Go setup comes in a handy suitcase too, and when it comes to gas Preshh can be connected to different sized CO₂ cylinders, so you don't have to rely on small disposable cartridges.
But carbonation is just the beginning. Once you start using pressure for something other than adding bubbles, things get really interesting. One interesting thing you can do with that is speed up clarification. I've been testing this with tomatoes, creating a wonderful cordial as a base for a Highball. Let me show you how, it’s Cocktail Time!
Preshh Clarified Tomato Juice
● 750g Tomatoes
● 20g Citric Acid
● 2.5g Malic Acid
Start by roughly chopping tomatoes and adding them to the blender alongside citric and malic acid. Blend for just about 15 to 20 seconds, then pour into a Preshh bottle. Add CO₂ from the top to put everything under pressure, then shake and repeat so that it’s twice carbonated. For the next 30 minutes we'll leave this to sit in the fridge, and while it won’t look promising at first, after the first few seconds of clarification through a muslin cloth the sediments will create an additional filter.
You can now clarify the first liquid that came through again, before leaving everything to slowly clarify… and that’s it. It’s a really simple process, and if you had already added water and sugar before blending you could strain this right into another Preshh bottle and go straight for carbonation. But here Preshh offers another benefit: with the added pressure the sugar dissolves quickly.
So we’ll turn the clarified tomato water into a cordial, and to get the right amount of sugar, I’ll use the Cordial Calculator here on kevinkos.com.
Preshh Tomato Cordial
● 450g Clarified Tomato Juice
● 196g Sugar
I’m using the entire yield from the clarification step, which I’ve added back into the Preshh bottle along with sugar. Once again adding CO₂ from the top will now help the sugar dissolve, resulting in a bright, tomato-based cordial that can be used for sours, highballs, or mocktails, and it will even stay fresh for longer.
With this ingredient ready, we can now build the entire cocktail in the same bottle, and for this I’ll combine the tomato cordial with Redbreast 12.
Clarified Tomato Highball
● 5oz · 150mL Tomato Cordial
● 8oz · 240mL Redbreast 12 Irish Whiskey
● 360 g Ice and Water Mix
● 8 drops 20% Saline Solution
The steps here are as simple as adding the ingredients into the bottle, carbonating the mixture, and giving the bottle a good shake. The mix of water and ice helps to chill and carbonate, while also making the temperature low enough that a second carbonation will make for even more CO₂ absorbed into the cocktail - just don’t forget to release the pressure from the first carbonation before adding more in.
All that’s left now is to serve the Clarified Tomato Highball into a highball glass and finish it with a tomato stem with a single cherry tomato… but if you can carbonate a cocktail, why not carbonate the garnish too? Grapes are a great way to add a surprising element to a simple garnish. You just fill the bottle with grapes and add the gas, and when you bite into them you get this really fun little burst of carbonation.
I could see this idea working really well as a garnish for wine, Cognac, or brandy-based cocktails. But if you want to take this idea even further, you can combine carbonation with smoke for added texture and flavor! I’ll do this with pineapple this time, but feel free to experiment with other ingredients like watermelon or berries too.
Carbonated Smoky Pineapple
● Pineapple Spears
● Apple Woor Chips
I'm first cutting pineapple into long slices, so they can fit in the bottle, but I'll also be able to pull them out. I’ll then fill the bottle with smoke using either a smoker top or gun, before closing the bottle and applying CO₂ from above. The smoke and pressure will infuse the pineapple with smoke, giving it a nice BBQ flavor you wouldn't expect from looking at it.
You can now take the pineapple out and cut it into smaller pieces, and this is ready to be placed on a tropical cocktail with tequila, rum, or scotch. But don't limit yourself to smoking only garnishes, you can do it with liquids too… maybe that's something for a future episode. And pressure isn't only useful for changing what's inside an ingredient, it can also help us keep things fresher for longer.
For example, once you open a bottle of vermouth or other wine-based ingredients, you're adding oxygen into the bottle. That exposes it to oxidation, but since you can also use Preshh precision caps with standard PET bottles, you can pour your opened vermouth into smaller bottles, then add CO₂ from the top to reduce the amount of oxygen in the headspace. That will help keep your wine-based ingredients fresher for longer. But even with this, remember to always keep your vermouth in the fridge.
So far, we've mostly been using pressure to carbonate, clarify, infuse, or preserve things, but we can also use it to extract flavor. In fact, that gives us the option of creating a fast, but delicious DIY citrus soda in the style of Sprite or 7Up.
Preshh Sprite / 7Up
● 1450mL 48.33oz Water
● 142g Sugar
● 7g Citric Acid
● 0.8g Malic Acid
● 15g Chopped Lemon Peels
● 5g Chopped Lime Peels
● 1 dash 20% Saline Solution
Since I know how good this will turn out I'm using the bigger, 2 liter bottle. So add in the ingredients, add CO₂ from the top and place this in the fridge for about 30 minutes. Normally, you'd let something like this sit for a while, or use a sous vide to extract all those flavors, but by using Preshh we can speed up that process and extract the flavors faster and without using higher temperatures. Just keep in mind to give the bottle a few turns after 10 and 20 minutes to make sure everything infuses evenly.
Now the next step is to strain out the peels, giving us a flavorful citrus base, which we still need to carbonate. If you have two bottles, you can strain it straight into that, then add the CO₂, shake to help the gas dissolve and settle a bit, then carbonate it again. Cold liquid dissolves on CO₂ better, so it's great to store this in the fridge before carbonating if you have the time. With that, our homemade citrus soda is ready.
As you can probably tell, I love playing around with a tool like this and finding multiple ways of using it. If you want to learn more about Preshh, you can visit their Instagram here. And if you're heading to BCB in Berlin this 2026, you'll be able to see it in action yourself. I'll also be at the event, so make sure you follow me on Instagram to see where I'm at and you can come say hi. Cheers, Friends of Cocktails, and see you next time!
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