Pairing food and cocktails

How many of you play with food and spirits pairings? They can be sublime if you do them right. Some bars really rock the idea–Pegu Club and Death and Company, for example, both in New York. But you can do them at home, too, if you’re careful.

My wife (Jennifer) and I have found that cocktails (or spirits) seem to pair best with small, single dishes rather than full meals. The flavors of a cocktail are generally so specific that it’s easier to pair them with a single dish than with a plateful of different flavors. So unless you’re having a double whisk(e)y with a steak and potato, you’re better off avoiding mealtime and focusing instead on (how appropriate!) cocktail hour.

Jen and I have played around with several pairing combos over the last few years, and we’ve come up with some keepers. Our favorite, and one that’s pretty simple to make, is inspired by a dish we had often at Pegu Club–smoked trout deviled eggs. When we lived in New York, I could buy smoked whole brook trout from a fishmonger at the Union Square Greenmarket, and Jen would prep a batch of deviled eggs, flake the trout flesh off the bones, and stir it into the yolk mixture before piping it into the whites. Now, however, we buy the trout from Whole Foods.

And what do we sip with this treat? A simple classic–a Beefeater martini, mixed at a 3:1 ratio of gin to vermouth. The crisp, herbaceous, and uncluttered flavors of the martini pair well with any rich or complex appetizer or small plate.

A good pairing for cooler months starts with figs, stuffed with blue cheese, wrapped in Serrano ham, and toasted just until the cheese melts and the ham crisps up. Pair that with an Adonis cocktail–sherry, sweet vermouth, and orange bitters.

If you’re a fan of artichokes, there’s an obvious pairing that should come immediately to mind–a Cynar-based Americano! We like ours with artichokes stuffed with a lemony crab salad.

“Fine, Dietsch, fine. Trout, eggs, ham, crab salad. Must you adulterate all your plants with animal protein, you savage?”

Well, no. Take this here Seelbach, see. It gots the Kentucky bourbon in it, which is corn. So let’s cook up some corn cakes. These are made with blue cornmeal, fresh sweet corn, and a bit of onion. Fry them in olive oil and they’re vegan! Topped with a tomato-fennel relish, they pair up perfectly with a Seelbach.

Recipes for the figs and artichokes are here. The eggs are simple; just make whatever version of deviled eggs you prefer and add smoked trout to taste. She’ll post the corn-cake recipe to her own blog soon.

Finally, to take the concept of pairings in a different direction, instead of pairing booze with food, perhaps try pairing booze flavors with food. What do I mean? Well, the other night, I had a couple of beautiful pork chops. I wanted to brine them before grilling them, so I prepped a brine of salt and water (obviously), and I added juniper berries, cardamom, lavender, lemon and lime zest, and just to gild the lily, a splash of gin. I would never put pork in a martini, but martini flavors on pork? Om nom nom.

Tagged as: cocktails, food, food and cocktails, food and spirits, pairings