Analog Fassionola Recipe

A quick post with my recipe for “Analog Fassionola”, an old-school tiki ingredient that’s shrouded in some mystery.

Originally, I shared my take on fassionola in a series of tweets, so the photography isn’t what we’d call… professional. Nonetheless, they get the point across. There’s been a lot of interest in it, so here we are.

I chose analog as the descriptor because it doesn’t involve any heating or electricity. Tiki homesteaders of the 1700s could have made it with some bowls and a crude strainer.

As much as I wish I’d put this recipe in my Minimalist Tiki book, the third printing had already gone to the printers. Oh well… Next time.

Before we get to the recipe, let me be clear. This recipe is not an exact science. It’s very loose, and I’m ok with that. Basically, what you’ll be doing is:

  • Making fruit salad
  • Dousing it in sugar and waiting a day
  • Adding passion fruit purée
  • Straining and bottling

What follows is a mostly cleaned up version of the text from the original tweets. I make no claim that it’s my finest writing to date.


Analog Fassionola Recipe (See disclaimer below)

  • 1 cup strawberries, moderately chopped
  • 1 cup blueberries, moderately chopped
  • 1 cup freshly cut pineapple, moderately chopped
  • Optional: Lemon peel
  • Optional: Mango, raspberries, or whatever else you damn well please
  • 1 or 2 pounds of sugar (see instructions)
  • Passion Fruit Purée, e.g. Funkin Passion Fruit Purée. (Not syrup!!! It should be tart, not sweet!)

Important: Let me be very clear: What we’re making here is a fruit salad, heavy on the berries. Nothing in the above ingredient list is cast in stone. Use whatever the heck sounds good to you. If it evokes the flavor of Kool-Aid when you’re done, you’re on track.

Instructions

An old school way to make Fassionola, sans heat or power! Because science! And we’ve got nothing else pressing us for time during this pandemic.

Assemble your fresh fruit & berries (except the passion fruit purée) and chop it moderately fine. About 2 pounds of fruit yielded around a quart of fassionola for me.

Cut up pineapple for making fassionola

Weigh your fruit on a kitchen scale. Grab a BIG bowl and add the fruit. Now add an equal amount (by weight) of sugar. If you have 34 oz of fruit, add 34 oz of sugar.

Yes, it will be a lot of sugar! And it will look impossibly dry. Never fear!

We’ll be letting sugar’s hydrophilic nature draw out all the juices. No heating, no juicers. This is analog, after all! Mix the fruit and sugar well. Cover and let sit.

Adding fruit and sugar to make fassionola

Optional: As soon as you’ve added the sugar, peel a lemon or two and throw that into the mix. You’re basically making Oleo Saccharum in addition to everything else.

Look at it after just four hours! Stir occasionally to keep the sugar from collecting on the bottom.

Fassionaola in progress

Twenty-four hours in. Look at that extraction!

After a day or so, mash up the fruit, then strain it out, leaving the liquid behind. I used a series of successively fine metal strainers. Measure how much syrup you have with a measuring cup, then place in a storage vessel such as a large sterilized mason jar with some extra room.

Now, you’ll need passion fruit purée, NOT syrup. The purée is quite tart. Add about ¼ as much purée as syrup. For example, if you have 32 oz of syrup, and 8 oz of purée. But feel free to adjust the amount of purée to your desired tartness.

Stir. Refrigerate. If desired, add high proof alcohol to inhibit spoilage. For example, with a quart of syrup, 2 oz of Everclear or other high proof neutral alcohol is probably fine.

Finished fassionola
This is a half-gallon mason jar. Totally worth it!

8 thoughts on “Analog Fassionola Recipe

  1. This is just a great idea, can’t wait to make it. I make most of my syrups without high heat, the exceptions being nut based (orgeats, toasted coconut, etc.).

    One question — how sweet was your resulting syrup? I try to adjust all my syrups to 50 Brix and would prefer not to have to add much water to get there at the end.

    Thanks,
    Nick

      1. Just wanted to update you on my experiment. I made a batch using:

        450 g strawberries
        250 g blueberries
        325 g pineapple
        175 ml sorrel tea (European hibiscus that I had left over from a milk punch I make)

        I added 75% sugar by weight, so 900g. After letting it sit a day I strained it a couple of times, lastly through a 150 micron bag. I ended up with almost exactly one liter of syrup, so I added 250 ml of passionfruit puree. I did one final filter through a 48 micron bag to remove the rest of the pulp, and then added 80 ml high proof neutral spirit.

        The final syrup came in at 45 Brix, which was my hope as I’d rather sweeten than dilute. The adjustment to 50 Brix was easy, but next time I’ll start with 80% sugar instead to get a bit closer. Not sure when that will be though — even after giving a bottle to a friend I had to freeze about half of it, so it will be a while before I make another batch.

        Final verdict — it’s delicious, and I’m super excited about making Hurricanes tonight!

        Thanks!
        Nick

        1. Great comment! I love that you took the time to meticulously document what you didn’t and quantify the brix.

        2. Made this to your specs with the exception of going 100% sugar. Amazing stuff and it made great Hurricanes! Thanks to both you and Matt & Andy from EasyTiki who pointed me to here!

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