“Behind this door must be the elevator to the King's castle. / You're filled with determination.”

Inspiration

Determination is a concept in UNDERTALE that is something like a physical form of willpower. We know that most monsters cannot possess determination, and if they come into contact with it it can distort their bodies in odd ways. Put simply, determination is what allows SOULs to persist after death. (Source undertale.fandom.com)

Another way of interpreting determination is that it is one of the SOUL modes capable of the fallen humans. Red, seems to correspond to a normal mode which feels implied to be determination. There appear to be traits corresponding to each color of the SOUL including that of justice for the yellow SOUL (which we also have a recipe for).

To represent the red SOUL in this drink interpretation, I took to utilizing a recent viral technique where you freeze something to the bottom of a glass and then build the drink on top of it!

Workshopping

Frozen Heart

If you’ve not yet seen the viral snow globe cocktail, I’ll summarize it for ya. You take a thing, and freeze it to the bottom of a cocktail glass. Then you build the cocktail on top of it. Before attempting this, please be warned that freezing things in glassware can be dangerous! Water expands as it freezes, and it is possible for your glassware to explode. That being said, be careful and proceed with caution, and determination.

For this drink, the flavors were built on top of whatever red juice I could freeze properly into a heart shape. The options available to me at the time of mixing were cranberry juice and pomegranate juice. The cranberry juice, when frozen was more pink than red, so pomegranate was the flavor to go with. I froze the pomegranate juice using these ice molds from Amazon.

It can take a bit of effort to get the heart in the glass just right, so I suggest preparing this in two parts. Part one is freezing the ice hearts. This is as simple as filling up the ice molds with the pomegranate juice and waiting for them to freeze. While the ice hearts are freezing, put a bit of water into the glass of your choice, and place it in the refrigerator.  At this point, we’re just cooling down the glass and water.

Now, the bottom of the ice heart is pointed, which makes it difficult to stand upright in the glass as it freezes. If you’re using the same mold I did, there’s a little circular divot in the mold that I cheated with to add a base to the ice heart. Remove a frozen ice heart and add a bit of water to one of those divots, then place the ice heart on top. The bottom of the heart should be in the water while the heart itself balances on the mold. After a while, you should have a frozen ice heart with enough of a base that it can stand upright on its own.

Finally, remove the ice from the mold and transfer your chilled glass to the freezer. At this point, you should be able to place the heart into the water in the glass. This might take a bit of effort but stay determined! Place the whole thing in the freezer, and after a couple hours, you should have a glass that has a red heart frozen to the bottom of it. (I hope this written explanation works! If you find that you still have trouble, feel free to reach out and I can throw together a video detailing how to do it!)

The part about the ice heart that really brings this drink together is that it will thaw over time. As the ice heart melts, the drink will become more pomegranate-forward and red. As the ice heart melts, it “fills” the rest of the drink with determination! 😉

Liquid Determination

With the pomegranate ice heart in place (our SOUL, really) we needed a drink to build on top of it. I built a drink with flavors that complement the pomegranate juice. A bit of orange liqueur and lime vodka with bubbly prosecco. I went with something bubbling here because it felt appropriate for the battles and setting of UNDERTALE. When monsters have determination their bodies bubble and deform. But also, in the heat of battle, I imagine one’s determination bubbles up like the will to fight!

Flavor Analysis

The bubbly flavor of prosecco pops forward in a way that blends into lime that feels appreciable, much like a typical spritz. It gives a hint of vanilla flavor that highlights the lime. The flavor slowly changes as the pomegranate heart ice melts and mixes into the drink.