Blogs : Wine and Drinks

Trend-O-Meter Says: Mezcal Cocktails Are In (6/3/09)

Mezcal is a tequilalike spirit made from agave, but smokier and rougher around the edges. Spotted at: San Francisco’s Elixir bar, in the Isla Zapoteca cocktail (pictured), with 1.5 ounces each of Del Maguey Crema de Mezcal and lemon juice, 1 ounce clover honey syrup, 1/2 ounce Velvet Falernum, and a splash of soda water; written about on food scribe Josh Ozersky’s The Feedbag blog; and at Mayahuel, the new NYC tequila lair, where it’s mixed into drinks like the Smoked Palomino, made with amontillado sherry, mezcal, grapefuit, and lime.

H. Joseph Ehrmann, owner of Elixir, says, “There is no mezcal of quality that has a worm in the bottle.” However, in Oaxaca, Mexico, where the majority of mezcal is made, people often drink it with a side of sal de gusano, a.k.a. worm salt, a seasoning made from ground-up worms that live in the agave plant. Ehrmann sometimes uses it to rim cocktails like the one pictured.

Posted by Roxanne Webber | 0 comments
Tagged with: restaurants and bars, trendometer, mezcal, food trends, wine and drinks, cocktails, mayahuel, elixir, josh ozersky, h. joseph ehrmann

Wine for the Sauce, Wine for Me

Everyone knows the old saw about not bothering to cook with a wine that you wouldn’t drink, but ipsedixit wants to know its converse: When is a wine too precious to go in the pan?

Opinions diverged wildly, of course. Some hounds say that wine quality makes a major difference (rebs ruined a perfectly good coq au vin using Two Buck Chuck instead of a nice $35 bottle of Burgundy), while others reckon they can’t tell much of a difference either way.

Sallie breaks down her reasoning most convincingly: It’s not price that matters, it’s the character of the wine. “Something with a lower alcohol content, minimal oak, higher acidity = good for a braise,” she says. Think Chianti, Pinot Noir, Côtes du Rhône. When using whites, she advises, similarly avoid oaky tasting wine like Chablis or Chardonnay. “A lot of cheap Chards have fake oak flavoring put into them which is extremely weird tasting in a pan sauce,” she says. A better inexpensive option, she says, is Chenin Blanc, which is very neutral.

Board Link: When is a wine too good to cook with?

Posted by Joyce Slaton | 0 comments
Tagged with: home cooking, food and cooking, wine and drinks, cooking with wine, alcohol

The Essence of Soda

Is all club soda the same? And is it different from seltzer water? Absolutely, says danieljdwyer. Seltzer water is just plain carbonated water; club soda has mineral salts added. “The difference is minor when one drinks them plain, but it can become noticeable when those mineral salts react with various types of alcohol,” says danieljdwyer. Some kinds of alcohol get a strange, metallic taste from the mineral salts; others benefit from them.

Different brands of club soda use varying blends of minerals, and even before the mineral blends go in, the flavor profile of the water depends on the water supply local to the brand. Confusing things still further, soda can be carbonated to different degrees. For instance, “I always found Canada Dry to be very carbonated, with very large bubbles, but also that it went flat very quickly,” says danieljdwyer. BarmyFotheringayPhipps drinks a lot of seltzer, and can definitely tell the difference between the two locally available brands: “Polar seems considerably fizzier, while Adirondack has less pronounced bubbles but a notably more mineral edge,” he says.

If you don’t find any brands to your liking, you can always make your own carbonated water. “You can also use higher quality water than the bottlers do, and still spend a tenth what it costs to buy a bottle,” says danieljdwyer. “And making it yourself allows you to customize how carbonated the water is.” He uses the seltzer maker from Soda-Club and finds it to be very economical. (CHOW likes the Soda-Club as well.)

Board Link: Is all club soda alike?

Posted by Sarah Perry | 1 comment
Tagged with: general topics, food and cooking, wine and drinks, seltzer, bubbly water, fizzy water, club soda, soda water, carbonated water, soda club

How to Make the Perfect Bloody Mary

A perfectly balanced Bloody Mary is made with about three parts Absolut Vodka to about two parts dry sherry, says paddydubai. “I think the sherry makes all the difference, adding a savoury dryness.” Lots of celery salt, limes and lemons squeezed in, and just a tiny bit of Tabasco complete the mix.

paddydubai likes to use Clamato instead of tomato juice (which, says Sooeygun, technically makes the drink a Bloody Caesar rather than a Bloody Mary). The resulting concoction is “just gorgeous! Punchy, tasty, packed with multi-layered flavour,” says paddydubai. But the flavor gets better and better if it’s allowed to marinate. Left alone in the fridge for a couple of days, the flavor “improved 1000%,” claims paddydubai.

Board Link: Marinating your Bloody Marys.

Posted by Sarah Perry | 0 comments
Tagged with: general topics, wine and drinks, bloody mary, marinated, recipes, clamato

Dumb Product Launch: Ferran Adrià's Special Beer

Señor El Bulli could not find any really great beers to drink with his food apparently, so with Barcelona brewer Estrella Damm he created Inedit, a “beer specifically created for food pairings.” The BeerAdvocate community says: “Average at best. Hardly drinkable as well. Too watery. Avoid.”

Posted by Lessley Anderson | 2 comments
Tagged with: beer, ferran adria, elbulli, inedit, estrella damm, products, el bulli, alcohol, pairing beer with food, beeradvocate, beer advocate, wine and drinks