So, we all know about the concept of food and wine pairing. It's everywhere...even chain-style restaurants give wine suggestions on their menus. (Hmmm...what to have with mozzarella sticks and a burger?) Liquor companies have decided to pile on. Now, we have mixologists (They can't be just called bartenders anymore.) coming up with signature cocktails to go with dinner.
Last week, I went to an event sponsored by Bombay Sapphire, GQ and Gourmet that celebrated this idea. Cocktails were paired with appetizers and passed around the room in tandem by waiters. The centerpiece of the event was a competition between two teams of chefs paired with mixologists. They had twenty minutes to prepare a dish (using a basket of "secret" ingredients) and a cocktail to match. It was interesting to watch.
I won't bore you with the details. I'm not sure I caught everything that made up the final dishes and cocktails...and I'm not sure how helpful that would be anyway. I did learn a few things though that you might be able to put to use in your own kitchen and bar.
The bar can be a different kind of kitchen. Hopefully, you are (or will be after continuing to read this blog) comfortable enough to improvise in the kitchen. You take ingredients you already have on hand and put them together in new and creative ways. You watch food shows and read recipes and then adapt their concepts in ways that work for you. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you make mistakes...but you always learn something in the process. You can do the same in the bar. There are countless web sites and books out there with cocktail recipes. Sometimes they can teach you a lot about what is possible. So, experiment.
Citrus is big. Many of the appetizer/cocktail pairings included citrus ingredients. The food was mostly seafood with Asian flavors and preparations. (Tuna tartare, crab wontons.) And the cocktails picked up on the citrus notes of the gin with ingredients like grapefruit juice and squeezes of lime. It's a lesson to apply at home. Especially when you are trying to pair a cocktail with food. Acidity pairs with food. (That's a lesson to remember with both cocktails and wines.)
Use "unusual" ingredients in your drinks. Take a standard recipe and give it a twist. A traditional "dirty" martini includes a splash of olive juice in the gin or vodka. How about a bit of jalapeno juice for a Southwestern kick? Usually, we mash mint and sugar into the bottom of our mojito glasses before adding the rum, lime and club soda. How about beginning the cocktail with a muddle of basil? (Even better if it's purple.) Instead of rimming your margarita glass with plain old kosher salt, add a little chili powder to the salt. Now that's a margarita. And it's these traditional "food" ingredients that can bridge the cocktail recipe into a perfect partner with dinner.
OK...so how to apply these concepts. Well...I'll admit this is going to take some adventurous thinking on your part. But here are a couple of ideas.
How about a Rosemary Collins--a Tom Collins made with rosemary simple syrup--with lemon and rosemary roasted chicken and potatoes? The piny herbal quality of the rosemary will pick up on the astringent juniper in the gin. And the lemon in the drink matches the lemon on the chicken.
Or to pick up on the Asian flair demonstrated at the Bombay Sapphire event, how about a Thai vodka cocktail? Muddle a tiny bit of jalapeno pepper and a couple of leaves of basil in a glass. Add vodka, a little orange, lemon or lime juice and top it off with club soda. If you prepare shrimp or scallops with some of the same ingredients, you've got a great combination.
So, get busy and create perfect pairings of your own. I'd love to hear what you come up with.
Last week, I went to an event sponsored by Bombay Sapphire, GQ and Gourmet that celebrated this idea. Cocktails were paired with appetizers and passed around the room in tandem by waiters. The centerpiece of the event was a competition between two teams of chefs paired with mixologists. They had twenty minutes to prepare a dish (using a basket of "secret" ingredients) and a cocktail to match. It was interesting to watch.
I won't bore you with the details. I'm not sure I caught everything that made up the final dishes and cocktails...and I'm not sure how helpful that would be anyway. I did learn a few things though that you might be able to put to use in your own kitchen and bar.
The bar can be a different kind of kitchen. Hopefully, you are (or will be after continuing to read this blog) comfortable enough to improvise in the kitchen. You take ingredients you already have on hand and put them together in new and creative ways. You watch food shows and read recipes and then adapt their concepts in ways that work for you. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you make mistakes...but you always learn something in the process. You can do the same in the bar. There are countless web sites and books out there with cocktail recipes. Sometimes they can teach you a lot about what is possible. So, experiment.
Citrus is big. Many of the appetizer/cocktail pairings included citrus ingredients. The food was mostly seafood with Asian flavors and preparations. (Tuna tartare, crab wontons.) And the cocktails picked up on the citrus notes of the gin with ingredients like grapefruit juice and squeezes of lime. It's a lesson to apply at home. Especially when you are trying to pair a cocktail with food. Acidity pairs with food. (That's a lesson to remember with both cocktails and wines.)
Use "unusual" ingredients in your drinks. Take a standard recipe and give it a twist. A traditional "dirty" martini includes a splash of olive juice in the gin or vodka. How about a bit of jalapeno juice for a Southwestern kick? Usually, we mash mint and sugar into the bottom of our mojito glasses before adding the rum, lime and club soda. How about beginning the cocktail with a muddle of basil? (Even better if it's purple.) Instead of rimming your margarita glass with plain old kosher salt, add a little chili powder to the salt. Now that's a margarita. And it's these traditional "food" ingredients that can bridge the cocktail recipe into a perfect partner with dinner.
OK...so how to apply these concepts. Well...I'll admit this is going to take some adventurous thinking on your part. But here are a couple of ideas.
How about a Rosemary Collins--a Tom Collins made with rosemary simple syrup--with lemon and rosemary roasted chicken and potatoes? The piny herbal quality of the rosemary will pick up on the astringent juniper in the gin. And the lemon in the drink matches the lemon on the chicken.
Or to pick up on the Asian flair demonstrated at the Bombay Sapphire event, how about a Thai vodka cocktail? Muddle a tiny bit of jalapeno pepper and a couple of leaves of basil in a glass. Add vodka, a little orange, lemon or lime juice and top it off with club soda. If you prepare shrimp or scallops with some of the same ingredients, you've got a great combination.
So, get busy and create perfect pairings of your own. I'd love to hear what you come up with.
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