Text 27380, 115 rader
Skriven 2012-07-21 18:09:00 av JIM WELLER (1:123/140)
Ärende: Bourbon and Barbecue
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An interesting article with some neat drink ideas from the Toronto
Globe & Mail's wine critic, Beppi Crosariol, who also knows his way
around a cocktail shaker...

Bourbon and barbecue? That's smokin'

For most of us, the transition from cocktail hour to mealtime calls
for a change in the potable course. It's a cue to put away the
shaker and sit down to the task at hand - eating - with a no-fuss
wine or beer. But a cocktail, properly mixed, can work wonders with
food, brimming with a spectrum of flavours as complex as those on
the plate.

I learned that lesson long ago, probably at the insistence of a wise
bartender; I'm especially fond of bourbon drinks with barbecue.
Robust smoky meat - whether classic slow-cooked pork or brisket or
quick-charred steaks - makes fast friends with the mellow sweetness
and luscious depth of American whiskey, especially when the beverage
also features the complementary zip of citrus fruit. Let's face it,
even chilled white wine or beer can turn tepid in the glass before
the flesh comes off the cooker. Not so with an ice-conditioned
cocktail.

Bourbon's affinity with barbecue is no news to residents of the
American South, where Southerners have long enjoyed all manner of
bourbon-based cocktails with their 'cue, from the classic mint julep
to whiskey sours to spiked lemonade and iced tea.

The spirit gets its rounded, sweet character from corn and is aged
for at least two years, often much longer, in new, heavily charred
oak barrels, imbuing the distillate with toasty, spicy overtones.
Wood also adds its own sweetness in the form of vanilla and caramel
flavours. In a sense, bourbon is a potable analogue to the
caramelized, smoky taste of barbecued red meat - one reason it works
so well in marinades, too.

Add fresh citrus to the mix and you've got velvety richness with
palate-cleansing tang, as in the classic whiskey sour. At Barque
Smokehouse in Toronto, the kitchen adds its own incendiary touch to
a few cocktails as well as the food. The Smoked Bourbon, a riff on
the whiskey sour, combines 1 1/2 ounces of Four Roses Bourbon with
an equal volume of lemon juice mixed with simple syrup. In this
case, the lemon juice is first placed in a container and left in a
smoker for about 20 minutes to soak up the essence of smouldering
wood. "The flavour is pretty strong, but the drink has the acidity
that really cuts through the richness of the food," says Gerardo
Diaz, Barque's assistant general manager. "The key word is
refreshing."

Among the signature drinks at Peckinpah, a Carolina-style barbecue
restaurant in Vancouver with more than 40 bourbons, is the Apple
Bourbon Thing. To make it yourself, place 1 ounce Buffalo Trace
Bourbon, 2 ounces apple juice and a dash of Angostura bitters in a
shaker with ice; shake and strain into a rocks-filled highball
glass; top up with ginger ale and add a splash of Southern Comfort.

The establishment's most popular drink, though, is a Caesar made
with bourbon instead of vodka and garnished with a slice of
house-smoked beef jerky. "It goes awesome with the food," says
server Crystal Mohr. Frankly, it sounds like you could order it as
food.

Though the Caesar lends itself to considerable experimentation,
bourbon lovers might consider it a Confederate crime to mess with
the classic mint julep. (Not that it hasn't been tried - hello,
basil!) Julep junkies have been known to stand on ceremony,
insisting on silver or pewter mugs and ice pounded in a canvas bag
into a snowy powder, but the basic recipe is pretty straightforward.

Add 1 teaspoon of confectioner's sugar, 2 teaspoons water and 2
spearmint leaves to a large, old-fashioned-style glass. Muddle the
mint to release its oils. Fill the glass to the rim with crushed ice
and pour in 2 1/2 ounces of bourbon. Most crucially, garnish with 3
or 4 sprigs from the top of a mint plant (where the leaves are
smallest), allowing the sprigs to extend about five centimetres
above the rim. Then serve with a short straw, forcing the imbiber to
bury his or her nose in the verdant forest.

Some people in fact insist on omitting mint leaves from the first
step, arguing that the drink is all about pure bourbon flavour and
the mere aroma, not flavour, of mint. But for fatty barbecue I like
a kick of refreshing green right in the drink.

At the Palomino Smokehouse in Calgary, summer marks a surge in sales
of Lynchburg Lemonade, the establishment's own take on a cocktail
traditionally made with lemon-lime soda, triple sec and Jack
Daniel's Tennessee whiskey. The Palomino's version is 1 1/2 ounces
Jack Daniel's, 1/2 ounce triple sec, the juice of about half a lime
and a splash each of orange and lemon juice. "It's essentially a
margarita made with whiskey," says general manager Arlen Smith.
"It's as palate-cleansing as bourbon can be."

If even that sounds too strenuous for a lazy summer's day, consider
an easy-peasy bourbon-spiked lemonade before defaulting back to beer
or wine.

"Lemonade romantically works because it's out of the Southern
tradition," says Al McPherson, chef at Boneheads BBQ in Halifax.
Though Boneheads serves only beer, not cocktails, Mr. McPherson says
one of the best barbecue pairings he's ever enjoyed was something he
dreamt up this summer: bourbon, lemonade and peach schnapps in a
roughly one-four-one ratio. "There was a little bit of that Southern
fruit, the peach, which lifts up and marries well with the sweetness
that you have in barbecue sauces."


Cheers

YK Jim

... I moved to Hawaii to research beach barbecuing and skinny dipping.

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