Drinking your meal -- an introduction to food in cocktails

Milestones dipped its hands into the "Caesar
with a whole lot of crap on it," market.
Sadly, it is already off the menu!

The "Caesar with a whole bunch of crap on it" trend is beginning to wane -- the novelty is wearing off, and the competition to pair a Caesar up with the most ridiculous garnishes is not as trendy as it once was. Nevertheless, Caesars are still Canada's staple cocktail (although, I have complained about that at length.) One of the takeaways from this trend could perhaps be novelty of solid food in cocktails. Without further ado, this article will be yet another vague response to novel trends!

Caesars are not the only drink to commonly feature solid food particles. There are of course, the two very obvious classics; the Martini and the Manhattan, both of which are commonly garnished with edible food. There is also a tendency to put intricate lemon, orange or lime twists on the rim, or directly into the glass. While not edible per se, they are still solid food particles which alter the quality of the drink. However, I won't discuss these zesty twists TOO much here, simply because I to focus more on edible solids in this article.

A dirty Martini. I gotta be real with you.
I'm not a fan of dirty Martinis. However,
I had a lot of fun making a little
asparagus raft on this one!

Being that I'm not really a fan of dirty Martinis, I would shy away from them in the first place. However, drinks of this quality that feature olive or pickle juice do give the opportunity to get a little bit creative in the same way that you would with a Caesar; ie. loading it up with pickled goodies. This is great for the type of people who drink dirty Martinis -- they generally aren't connoisseurs of spirit, which is why they want to mix it down with the olive juice in the first place. While they obviously do have a certain level of appreciation that falls somewhere closer to the "most interesting Man in the world" end of the spectrum, there is an indication that they would appreciate fancy garnishes.

Fruity cocktails also give a good opportunity to add edible foods; namely fruit! I've seen drinks garnished with almost any kind of fruit you can imagine. Seriously, even a lot of those esoteric ones (although, I've yet to see a durian or jackfruit cocktail....) Strawberries, lychee, and orange are all easy options to include in fruit flavored cocktails. But really, if you tend towards more exotic fruits like Dragonfruit, Starfruit, or Papaya, you can generally create a more unique cocktail, and also get practice pairing with more uncommon flavors.

Love the addition of Lychee, in this
Lychee '75.

There are quite a bit more things you can do with food in cocktails too. A common trend a few years ago was to mix foods into different syrups, which had quickly evolved into the infusion of solid foods in spirits. For the last year or so, using solid food directly in the cocktails has really taken off though. While I've only briefly touched on the topic in this article, there is really quite a bit to talk about on this subject, and there will be future articles about different ways to incorporate solid foods in your drinks.

Molecular Gastronomy and Mixology

The culinary arts world has been colliding with the art of bartending since before those two terms have existed. It's all been culminating in the past decade with the expansion of Internet connectivity and thus access to information. Much like the growth of the craft beer and spirits scene, due in part to Internet, the craft cocktail scene has been expanding as well.

Awe yeah. Look at those platters! Chocolate fondue time!

Professional bartenders are like jacks of all trades in their industry. They need a little bit of everything and a wide breadth of knowledge in order to stay relevant. Enter molecular gastronomy; essentially the science of cooking.

This is what Spanish Coffee looks like if you turn
it into spaghetti.

The use of the word mixology has some implicit level of sciencey built into it. The culture itself is steeped in different scientific aspects of cooking, but combining it with molecular gastronomy is another step in the direction of both obscurity and artistry.

A few tactics of molecular gastronomy can provide more novelty to the experience of the cocktail drinker. Through gelification you can turn sweet cocktails into dessert hors d'oeuvres to pass around while guests sip on appertifs. By adding agar agar to your Spanish coffees, for example, you can shoot them through tubes and solidify them into spaghetti.

Reverse spherification is awesome for shots
while spherification makes little Roe like pearls

Possibly much more interesting are the processes of spherification and reverse spherification. By adding the brown algae extract known as sodium alginate to your liquids and dunking small drops of it into a calcium lactate glutonate (perhaps through a squeeze bottle) you can create small roe like spheres in a process called spherification. The process has obvious uses for the bartender, as garnish. 

The reverse method, mixing liquids with calcium lactate and dunking into a bath of sodium alginate can produce larger spheres containing alcohol. A perfect gimmick for creating new shots.

The downside to these methods is preparation time and precision. Much like the baker, the molecular gastronomist will have to measure out ingredients by the gram, or risk ruining the whole batch. Mixtures must also be purified of air bubbles,  which means either using expensive vacuum equipment or letting liquids sit overnight. Demineralized water must also be used, for obvious reasons.

Shots shots shots!

If the photos and suggestions in this article are too tempting, stay tuned for my next update on molecular gastronomy where I show you how to do it. Wait for my instructional videos and articles in the coming weeks and months folks!