Category Archives: Food and spirits

Barmoire, Bartenders, Cocktail Legends, Cocktails are everywhere, Drinks around the world, Exotic tales of adventure, Food and spirits, Irving, Old Fashioned, People, Restaurants, Why doesn't this happen more often

In North Texas, an Indian bartending legend taps Indian flavor and culture and stirs up memories

Five years ago, Yangdup Lama and his business partner launched Sidecar in New Delhi; last year, the two-story neighborhood bar and speakeasy was named India’s best bar and came in at No. 67 in an annual ranking of the world’s best cocktail bars (and No. 18 in Asia) – the only establishment in India to make the global list . Meanwhile, Lama was named Travel + Leisure Asia’s 2022 Mixologist of the Year.

Not bad for an accidental bartender, as Lama likes to describe himself. Last week, the energetically elfin, 27-year industry vet purposely found himself in North Texas, where he’d been drafted to design the cocktail program at Sanjh, the posh, highly anticipated Indian restaurant recently opened in Irving.

At a pop-up event at Sanjh in Irving, Yangdup Lama of New Delhi’s Sidecar stirs up his namesake Old Fashioned.

For a long time, he says, bartenders in India looked to the West for inspiration as they crafted basic martinis and Manhattans in New Delhi’s fledgling cocktail scene. But with people around the globe increasingly warming to Indian flavors, Lama and others have proudly embraced the chance to showcase the country’s richness of flavors and culture in their own land and beyond.

In North Texas, such flavors have gone woefully underutilized in cocktails, which is why what Lama aims to do at Sanjh is so exciting.

From ‘accidental bartender’ to national industry icon

Lama, from the hill district of Darjeeling, joined Delhi’s Hyatt Regency in the 1990s with others who’d worked banquets and restaurants; having joined later than most of his colleagues, he said, he was assigned to the Hyatt’s chic Polo Lounge, where he had zero experience.

“I had no clue what I was doing,” he said. “But I started to enjoy the space. I realized you could be casual and build relationships with guests.”

He embraced the challenge. In short time, Lama was named India’s bartender of the year.  Since then he’s won bartending competitions, worked as a brand ambassador, authored a cocktail book, started a bartending school and trained bartenders throughout India and beyond.

Lama’s Tea Tonic, built around a Darjeeling-tea-infused sweet vermouth, reflects his enthusiasm for featuring the flavors of his native India.

Pop-up showcases creations for Irving restaurant

Last week, Lama hosted a pop-up event in Sanjh’s second-floor lounge to showcase some of his creations for the restaurant, including a gimlet tinged with a Himalayan cherry tincture brought from India and a tea tonic boldly anchored by a Darjeeling-tea-infused sweet vermouth.

“Whenever I make a menu, there’s always one tea element,” he said.

His Jaam E Aam, featuring roasted cumin liqueur blended with gin, mango puree and chili tincture, is refreshingly lush while leaning on a rarely mined taste profile.

Then there’s the Chaat, named for the Indian street food typically laced with flavors spanning the spectrum of sweet, spicy, savory and salty with a bit of crunch. “It’s Hindi for ‘to lick,’” Lama said. “There’s something for everyone in a chaat.”

Yangdup Lama pours a pair of Jaam E Aams, featuring a roasted cumin liqueur with gin, mango puree and a chili tincture.

Lama built his eponymous cocktail on a base of tequila, lime and a syrup made from chaat masala, a spice mix whose range of variable ingredients can include amchoor, coriander, cumin, asefetida, ginger and chili powder. The silky, boldly flavorful drink was topped with a pepper-cilantro foam.

Lama said he hoped to not only tap the range of Indian food and culture but to inspire nostalgia as well, and he may have nailed it mostly with his Yang’s Old Fashioned. He mixed Buffalo Trace bourbon and Angostura bitters with a syrup made from betel nut.

“Every Indian at some point will have an experience with this,” he said, proffering a betel leaf, typically rolled with ground areca nut and slaked lime and chewed as a mouth freshener or snack. “For a lot of people it’s a habit. You can bite on it any time of day.”

Vijay Patel, at rear, a retired businessman attending the pop-up from Austin, waxed nostalgic over the betel nut flavor in Lama’s Yang’s Old Fashioned. “Dude,” he said. “That’s paan.”

Vijay Patel, a retired businessman visiting from Austin, was captivated from the first sip.

“Dude. This is paan,” Patel said, citing the name given the mixture throughout South Asia. “People snack on it in the afternoon. It’s like putting on a shirt, dude. It’s no big deal.”

Patel’s reaction infused the visiting bartender with no small amount of joy.

“The idea is to translate some of it, what people have done at home,” Lama smiled.

One of Lama’s spur-of-the-moment creations.

Sanjh, 5250 N. O’Connor Blvd., Ste. 146, Irving. Cocktails are priced at $16.

Alchemy, Amaro, Bartenders, Bishop Arts, Dallas, Exotic tales of adventure, Food and spirits, Most excellent ideas

Sweet on bitter: At Dallas' Chimichurri, barman salutes a lionized Italian liqueur by crafting his own

The Italian bitter liqueur known as fernet is wildly popular in Argentina, where the earthy amaro is mixed with Coca-Cola to create what’s become known as the country’s national drink, the simply named Fernet and Coke.

Fernet is also wildly popular with Dallas bartender James Slater, who over the years has made a habit of incorporating the unabashedly bitter amaro into some of his more memorable cocktails. “It’s kind of my taste,” the Panamanian-born barman says.

Guardian Angel, Dallas’ James Slater’s tribute to fernet, an Italian bitter liqueur.

So maybe it was destiny that Slater would be tapped to run the bar at Chimichurri, the Argentinian bistro that Jesus Carmona opened last fall in Dallas’ Bishop Arts District, where images of legendary Argentinian figures preside over bustling tables flowing with grilled meats and breaded milanesa — and where Slater serves up the requisite Fernet-and-Coke in a hollowed-out Coca-Cola can.

But Slater, who has helmed the bar at Dallas places such as Oak, Knife and the late Five Sixty, has taken his fernet fandom even further: Presented with the proper atmosphere, he’s now started making his own. The small-batch run he calls Guardian Angel can now be enjoyed at Chimichurri or taken home in sample 2-ounce bottles, each of which bears the image of an winged angel watching over a pair of innocents.

“Living in a pandemic in this world, many people have felt alone and forget that we have a guardian angel who, without our realizing it, has helped us many times,” he says. “We sometimes forget that, so that’s how I was inspired to name this amaro.”

Slater, at Chimichurri, which opened last fall in Dallas’ Bishop Arts District. Argentina is the world’s largest consumer of fernet.

If you’ve never tried fernet, you might be hard pressed to associate its taste with anything spiritual: It belongs to a family of Italian bitter liqueurs, or amari, whose levels of sweetness span a spectrum that can range from friendly to non-existent. Montenegro leans toward the former, with boldly red Campari somewhere in between; fernet — the mostly popular brand of which is the ubiquitous Fernet-Branca — embraces the latter.

A digestif traditionally served neat, it’s made by macerating and then aging a wide-ranging mix of herbs, spices and roots that typically includes saffron, cardamom and myrrh. One’s baptism into the fold is like meeting someone you never forget  — the eccentric who announces her presence at the party, the nonconformist whose swagger carries no whiff of diplomacy. Fernet definitely makes an impression.

It’s said that Argentina consumes 75 percent of the world’s fernet, but a good portion of the rest likely goes to craft bartenders, who have been known to trade shots of it with each other so often that the drink became known as “the bartender’s handshake.”

At Chimichurri, the Fernet and Coke — Argentina’s unofficial national drink — is served in a hollowed Coca-Cola can.

Slater has a knack for crafting drinks that temper fernet’s earthy bitterness with adroit hints of sweetness: At now-defunct Spoon, his Blue Moon cocktail blended it with blueberry preserves and a second Italian bitter, Averna; at Network Bar in Trinity Groves, he’d subbed blackberries for blue and replaced Averna with a ginger liqueur to create the bodacious Malta.

He loves the feat of taking an ingredient that people find challenging and countering it with others that both complement and build on it.

“People who taste it for the first time say it tastes like medicine, or they try to figure out the flavors,” he says. “That’s the cool thing, to watch people’s faces when they try it, then to make something unique and different. And making fernet is like — a process, like science. You build it and see it develop until you get the profile you want.”

Just before the restaurant’s fall opening, Slater took inventory of some of the 28 ingredients — from saffron to South American cedron — that he would use to craft his fernet blend.

A few days before Chimichurri opened in November, Slater unloaded from his vehicle a box loaded with herbs, spices and roots that would comprise his 28-ingredient recipe. They ranged from rosemary, thyme, turmeric, dried galangal and orris root to South American influences such as purple corn, yerba mate and the herbs cedron and carqueja powder, both known for aiding digestion.

“I had to get some of these on Amazon,” he said. “But I wanted to make something really unique, something with Latin roots.”

The finished product, which had to sit for a couple of months before being unveiled, starts out like Averna with hints of sweet caramel before descending into fernet’s characteristically spice-and-root-soaked depths. The two-ounce bottles sell for $12 apiece.

Slater is pleased with his first run but is already pondering the sequel.

Not surprisingly, he says: “I think it needs to be more bitter.”

Slater, who always makes sure to include a cocktail featuring fernet on his menus, pours a taste of his bitter elixir at Chimichurri’s bar.
Barmoire, Bartenders, Food and spirits, For A Good Cause, You gotta eat

Dallas pitmasters team to aid bartenders in need as COVID-19 shutdown lingers

One might easily take the local hospitality community for granted, knowing how readily bartenders and spirits brand reps have stepped up in recent years for benefit events aiding abused kids, disaster relief or Trigger’s Toys, a nonprofit serving hospitalized kids and their families.

Now, in the midst of widespread shelter-in-place orders that have shut down area bars and restaurants because of coronavirus concerns, it’s their own community that needs the help – and a team of local BBQ pitmasters hopes to come to the rescue with a meaty effort dubbed The Great Texas Bar-BQ Pick-Up.

Led by Leo Morales of Barrel & Bones Craft Bar and Smokehouse in The Colony, the team — which includes Dallas’ Ferris Wheelers and Smoke Sessions of Royse City — plans to cook 250 briskets to anchor hundreds of meals whose sale will benefit struggling hospitality workers. The effort is being organized by Trigger’s Toys, which hopes to distribute proceeds to about a hundred area bartenders.

“They’ve always been there for Trigger’s, so Trigger’s is going to be there for them,” said Bryan Townsend, who co-founded the Dallas-based charity nearly a decade ago with wife Stacey.

It was the hospitality industry, Townsend said, that helped build Trigger’s Toys’ success, volunteering to staff the Ultimate Cocktail Experience, the agency’s annual event that has raised $1 million since 2012.

So when Morales approached him and Brian McCullough, both of whom often help put together bartender-driven benefit efforts, they were all in.

“Leo’s been part of the bar community,” McCullough says. “He knows this impacts all of our friends.”

Morales already had experience providing BBQ meals to local breweries that don’t have their own kitchens, so the infrastructure was in place.

For $50, you can buy a family meal — including two pounds of brisket, plus two sides — for your household and/or front-line workers such as nurses and police officers. Or you can simply make a donation to the effort.

“We’re really just trying to crush this thing from all angles,” Townsend says.

The meals will be available for pickup on April 27 at as many as 20 brewery locations throughout the Dallas area, and Townsend hopes to repeat the event if it’s successful. You can place your order here.

The effort comes a week after Cattleack Barbecue in Farmers Branch announced that it would give away 300 pounds of brisket and burnt ends to those in need of a meal.

Barmoire, Dallas, Diet, Food and spirits, Shots, Trinity Groves, You gotta eat

At this avocado-crazy Dallas restaurant, the superfruit is in your cocktails — including an avocado toast shot

Avocado: You may have heard of it. The current lord of the fruit kingdom is officially everywhere, the most visible (and notorious) sign of its cultural sway the dish known as avocado toast. So naturally, it was just a matter of time before someone created an avocado toast shot.

The Avocado Toast Shot at newly opened AvoEatery, at Trinity Groves.

It’s fitting that that someone is Faith Railey, beverage manager at recently opened AvoEatery in Trinity Groves, where the ubiquitous superfruit graces every dish in some way. The same goes for Railey’s 10-drink house cocktail lineup, and with this weekend’s launch of AvoEatery’s brunch menu, the avocado toast shot made its debut.

Railey’s $5 shot is a mini-smoothie mix of avocado-infused Prairie vodka, spinach syrup, lime and a rim coated with a mix of salt, cayenne and panko breadcrumbs. It’s tasty enough to enjoy as a sipper, savoring every bit of crisp from that clever rim.

Avocados are no stranger to cocktails in the occasional sense, typically muddled or infused; their flesh offers velvety texture without the cloying sweetness of banana and a Grinch-green shade that’s visually arresting. Rich in healthy fats that are the current craze, avocado appeals in cocktails, too: “It’s like blending in butter to your coffee,” New York City’s Ariel Arce told Vogue in 2016. “It adds a deep, creamy and rich flavor while still keeping the drink light.”

The Lemon Blossom cocktail at AvoEatery incorporates avocado honey for a bourbon spin on the classic Bee’s Knees.

In Dallas, Meso Maya’s tasty avocado margarita capitalizes on the fruit’s sweet muddled creaminess, while the since-departed avocado gimlet at Moxie’s gleaned the fruit’s savory flavor into rosemary-and-infused gin. But a full-on cocktail lineup forged from avocado? Railey, formerly of Republic Texas Tavern in North Dallas, took it as a challenge, putting simple but crafty avocado spins on established classics.

“We tried to use the entire tree, not just the fruit,” she says. “I think we used everything except for the bark. And the pits.”

Suddenly, the pink neon sign screaming from one side of AvoEatery makes sense. “Be Anything But Predictable,” it says in words you might imagine coming straight from an avocado itself (if an avocado could talk). It’s like, “Y’all! I can do anything!”

Yes, little avocado. Yes you can.

Until she joined AvoEatery, Railey’s avocado interest had been minimal. “I’ve always liked avocados,” she says. “But I would just eat them for breakfast.”

Faith Railey, AvoEatery’s beverage director, spun a 10-drink lineup of avocado-influenced cocktails.

Now, ‘cados are her avocation, and you’ll find ingredients on the menu like an “avocado elixir” – a slightly sweet, amber-colored tea made from steeped avocado leaves – which flavors the Pinkies Up, a vodka sour variation. Or the avocado syrup (“my baby,” she says) that adds a light touch to the Avo Colada.

Naturally, there’s an Avo ‘Rita, and it’s a winner, livened up with melon liqueur and a rim of hibiscus salt. The Lemon Blossom employs floral avocado honey in a bourbon variation of the gin-based Bee’s Knees. Meanwhile, the formidable Avo Old Fashioned hews close to the traditional cocktail with the addition of Railey’s avocado-chocolate bitters, which like her “elixir” is crafted from the leaves of the avocado tree.

“We wanted to make sure we paid respect to the cocktail movement and how far it’s progressed,” says James Hamous, AvoEatery’s operations manager. “But we have to make it approachable.”

Railey’s When The Smoke Hits is a margarita with mezcal and a rim of spicy Tajin.

The oddball of the group is the Let It Go, which really isn’t a cocktail at all, just a pour of tequila lapped around an avocado iceberg. The short glass promotes sipping, because you’ll want to give the frozen avocado time to melt – or will you?

A wooden spoon served with the drink makes it an interactive experience: You can coax the cube around the glass, chip avo-nibbles out of it or break it into chunks. Either way, the melting avocado cube gradually adds savory silkiness to the tequila, testing your will with its ever more murky green tint.

Whatever drink you choose, you might want to offer a toast to the once lowly, lumpy avocado, which now rules the land. As Railey now says, “it’s more than just a fruit.”

Bars, Dallas, Distilleries, Drinks around the world, Events, Exotic tales of adventure, Fair Park, Flying Produce, Food and spirits, Garden to bar, Mezcal, Most excellent ideas, Texas

A mezcal made from smuggled smoked brisket is a real thing, and it will hit Dallas Saturday

In the south of Mexico, people have been making mezcal – the smoky, agave-based forebear of tequila – for generations. But only on special occasions, like weddings or quinceaneras, would a mezcalero break out one of his rare pechuga mezcals – which unlike traditionally twice-distilled mezcal are distilled a third time, with a protein, typically a chicken or turkey breast, suspended within the heated still. (“Pechuga” means breast in Spanish.)

brisket pechuga mezcal
The pechuga mezcal made by Gracias a Dios for Dallas’ Las Almas Rotas using Texas smoked brisket. Both the bar and spirits purveyor Bar & Garden will hold launch events Saturday.

As the mix cooks, the meat drippings impart more of a savory quality to the finished product than actual meat flavor. “People get this idea that you’re going to taste the meat, and you really don’t,” says Shad Kvetko, co-owner of Dallas mezcaleria Las Almas Rotas. “It’s more of an umami mouthfeel. The flavors that come through are more the fruits and spices you put into it; I’ve had some made with green mole, and that you can really taste.”

With mezcal’s popularity booming, more pechugas are on the market than ever before. Late last spring, as Kvetko and his bar staff chatted with mezcal producer Xaime Niembro about the idea of visiting Oaxaca to see the production process firsthand, Niembro suggested making a pechuga while the group was there. Naturally, the conversation turned to what meat to use.

The brisket pechuga-style mezcal made by Gracias a Dios for Dallas’ Las Almas Rotas was flavored with Texas smoked brisket, prickly pear, chilies, corn and other local ingredients. (Photo by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)

“We said, let’s do a smoked brisket,” Kvetko said. “You know, make it kind of a statement.”

OK, this is the kind of Tex-Mex I can get behind.

Has a more Texas-style pechuga ever hit the market before? Doubtful. And from 6 p.m. until close Saturday, Las Almas Rotas will celebrate its one-of-a-kind creation, made in collaboration with label Gracias a Dios, at a launch party featuring Niembro and brisket tacos by Oak Cliff’s Brandon Mohon.

It was Mohon who smoked the brisket used to flavor the small, 80-liter batch, and the special-edition bottle’s stylish design, featuring a Dia-de-los-Muertos-style cow head, belies the effort it took to bring it to life: Before it could happen, the brisket first had to be smuggled into Mexico.

mezcal pechuga
Gracias a Dios mezcalero Oscar Hernandez hands the medley of ingredients, including smoked brisket, that will flavor the pechuga mezcal to Las Almas Rotas co-owner Shad Kvetko to place inside the still. (Photo taken October 2018 by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)

Mohon used a smaller-than-normal cut rubbed simply with salt and pepper, making it slightly underdone knowing it would be further cooked in the still. “I wanted to give it some nice color so it would look like Texas brisket when it arrived,” he said.

Mohon vacuum-sealed the brisket, froze it and delivered it to Kvetko, who packed it in ice and squirreled it away in his Mexico-bound luggage. Luckily, he said, no one made a fuss about it.

Once in Oaxaca, Kvetko hit a local mercado and loaded up on other ingredients like prickly pear, corn, squash blossoms, Mexican stone fruit and a bunch of chilies. In they went, along with the brisket, into a cognac-style Charentais still – it looks a bit like a giant onion – that Gracias a Dios was using for the first time.

Las Almas Rotas
Kvetko got a tattoo of an agave plant to commemorate the making of the brisket pechuga mezcal. (Photo taken October 2018 by Emmy Hernandez Jimenez)

The initial release of barely 75 or so bottles – a little more than two-thirds of the batch – was snatched up by spirits purveyor Bar & Garden on Ross Avenue, which sold out of nearly all of its supply through pre-orders within 24 hours. This weekend, the store will raffle off chances to buy the remaining few bottles at an event featuring Niembro from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday.

The $80 price tag is well worth it: The finished product, sweet and citrus-y on the nose, is complex and robust, best taken in small sips that deliver smoky spice and citrusy sweetness with a dark, warm undercurrent of savoriness. 

“The nose I get is salt-water taffy,” says Bar & Garden’s Victoria Garcia. “It’s candy-esque, incredibly smooth.”

The rest of the batch will be stored in glass vessels for a while, to be released later this year or early next, and while Kvetko is excited to showcase the one-of-a-kind product, it’s the larger context represented in the bottle that warms his heart.

“It’s a symbol of cooperation and friendship between two nations,” Kvetko says. “And any show of friendship right now is great. We love these people. We love Mexico.”

Saturday, Feb. 2

Brisket pechuga launch at Bar & Garden, 3314 Ross Ave., Ste. 150, 1 to 3 p.m.

Pechuga Pachanga at Las Almas Rotas, 3615 Parry Ave. 6 p.m. until 2 a.m.

Dallas, Downtown, Events, Food and spirits, Gin, People

Martinis and oysters are on deck as Ford’s Gin co-founder visits Dallas

Ford's Gin
Gin and oysters are besties, and on Wednesday, you can experience it firsthand. (Photo by Rebecca Peplinski)

Those people who love gin know that two of the most pleasing ways to enjoy it are 1) straight up, in a martini or one of its classic variations; and 2) paired with oysters.

Those people are in luck this week, with two events in downtown Dallas set to showcase the juniper-accented botanical spirit, both sponsored by Ford’s Gin.

Gin geeks would do well to get their tushies to Monday’s happy hour at the Adolphus Hotel, where Simon Ford – whose very name his gin bears – will be in attendance. Ford, co-founder of spirits brand The 86 Co., which produces Ford’s Gin, is one of the world’s authorities on gin and will share his knowledge over $6 Ford’s Gin martinis from 5 to 7 p.m. at the hotel bar, at 1321 Commerce St.

Can’t make it Monday? Well, there’s always Wednesday in Victory Park, where you may not find Simon Ford, but you’ll find bivalves – 300 of them, to be exact, and all of them on the shucking house. The oyster boisterousness goes down at 5 p.m. at Billy Can Can, 2386 Victory Park Lane. Three gin martini variations will be available for $6 apiece and the special prices will run until the oysters are gone. A portion of martini sales will benefit Youth With Faces, an organization assisting Dallas County youths who’ve been through the juvenile justice system.

Barmoire, Drinks around the world, Food and spirits, Plano, Shochu, Uptown, West Dallas

You can handle the proof: Shochu, Japan’s national spirit, making inroads in DFW

shochu
Shochu, once a spirit of the Japanese working class, is becoming increasingly available as the craft-cocktail renaissance prompts interest in global spirits.

A man and woman sitting at the bar eye the glass curiously at Jettison, in West Dallas, not sure what to make of this liquid they’ve barely heard of, which has been poured over ice. The man picks it up and brings it to his nose. “I can smell the sweet potato,” he says.

The vegetal sweetness is evident on the tongue, too – that’s the beauty of shochu, the centuries-old, national spirit of Japan, which is slowly gaining a steady, if still uncertain, foothold in Dallas-Fort Worth as a casual Japanese food scene blossoms throughout the area.

“Because it’s only one-time distilled, you really taste the base ingredient,” says Jettison’s bar manager, George Kaiho, who grew up in Japan until he was 18. “And potato and rice shochu will taste totally different.”

Bowen House, shochu
In Uptown, Bowen House’s Do, Re, Miso cocktail supplements delicate rice shochu with fennel flavor and white miso paste

Shochu’s single distillation keeps its alcohol level between 20 and 25 percent, not as strong as most spirits but still heftier than wine, making it a great accompaniment to yakitori and other small dishes over convivial, leisurely dinners at Japanese izakayas.

“I enjoy the nuance and complexity,” says Justin Holt, sous chef at Lucia in Bishop Arts, who plans to feature shochu at his upcoming restaurant, Salaryman. Shochu’s low-proof nature, he says, means more of them can be sampled in a single sitting – typically as a mix of shochu and soda (or juice, or occasionally iced tea) called a chu-hai, basically a shochu highball (hence the abbreviated name).

Besides rice and sweet potato, the spirit is made from things like soba, sugarcane and, most commonly, roasted barley, giving the category a broad range of flavor profiles, from mild to aggressively earthy.

Barley-based shochu is typically dry and spicy, while sweet potato is at the root of many premium shochus prized for their natural sweetness. Some rice shochus have a mild sweetness similar to sake, though some, Kaiho says, can seem nearly flavorless. The types of yeast used in the fermentation process also play a role in flavor profiles.

shochu
At since-closed Yayoi in Plano, bartender Lyndsy Rausch featured shochu in its traditionally popular highball form, mixed with tea or soda.

While shochu began as a working-class spirit, the global craft spirits trend has ushered in higher quality versions fit for drinking on the rocks, or with water. One brand, a sherry-cask-aged sweet potato shochu called Angel’s Temptation, can sell for as much as a fine whiskey.

In addition to Jettison, you’ll find shochu at Niwa Japanese BBQ in Deep Ellum, Plano’s Yama Izakaya and Irving’s Mr. Max. This being America, its rising availability means bartenders are exploring its use in cocktails: In Uptown, Bowen House features the spirit in its delicious Do, Re, Miso, served in a small bowl, while Oak Lawn’s Izakaya RoMan (at which Kaiho consulted) spins several shochu variations of classics like the Negroni and Martini.

At since-closed Yayoi in Plano, in addition to a number of traditional chu-hai combinations, bartender Lyndsy Rausch blended shochu with matcha, yuzu and soda in her Meet Your Matcha cocktail as well as in a wasabi-spiced Bloody Mary.

“It’s a wonderful liquor that unfortunately is still a little hard to find in Dallas,” Rausch says. “Adding matcha to it was really the first thing that came to mind, because I wanted something earthy to match its complex flavors.”

shochu
At Jettison, in West Dallas, George Kaiho’s Earth Wind and Fire is a fine example of how shochu’s delicate flavor can be used effectively in a cocktail.

One reason shochu hasn’t yet found popular footing in the U.S., Kaiho believes, is because there’s no definitive shochu-based cocktail. He sees shochu following a path similar to pisco, the national spirit of Peru, in that it’s easily subbed in cocktails for spirits like vodka or gin – except that it offers the added benefit of being low-proof, a slower-paced option that’s trending around the country.

“In order to popularize shochu, there needs to be a cocktail,” Kaiho says. “If you can make a good cocktail with potato shochu, you’ve got yourself a good cocktail.”

Kaito’s latest shochu cocktail wouldn’t be a bad place to start: His Earth Wind & Fire supplements Shiranami’s sweet potato shochu with a harmony of smoky mezcal, the sweetly vegetal backbeat of Green Chartreuse and a citrusy yuzu tincture. The mezcal and Chartreuse boost the drink’s alcohol content while still allowing the earthy shochu to take the lead.

Thankfully, the sweet potato flavor is strong enough to meet the task, since, as bartender Tommy Fogle of Industry Alley in the Cedars notes, many shochus are so subtle that they’re better off being consumed straight.

“I feel like shochu is so light and delicate, it gets lost really easily,” Fogle says as he pours a sample. “Why put it in a cocktail? The point of this is to buy a bottle with a buddy and just take shots until the bottle is gone.”

Alchemy, Diet, Food and spirits, Garden to bar

Cool beans: Aquafaba, or chickpea water, is gracing cocktails and making vegans happy

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Hugo Osorio, The Theodore
Bartender Hugo Osorio uses aquafaba instead of egg white to give his mezcal-based cocktail a nice foam layer that he garnishes with a few sprinkles of a beet-ginger cordial.

At The Theodore, at NorthPark Center, bar manager Hugo Osorio enjoys making a good egg white cocktail – from the time and attention it takes to its silky, foam-layered result. But while some of his regulars like to try new things, “when I give them a Whiskey Sour, they’re like, ‘I can’t. I’m vegan.’”

Then he discovered aquafaba, an ingredient that has vegans swooning over its accessibility and versatility. A portmanteau combining the Latin words for bean (faba) and water (aqua) it’s, as Bon Appetit put it, “the translucent viscous goop you probably rinse down the drain when you open a can of chickpeas.”

For most, the typical course of action here is to drain the chickpeas and throw out the liquid. That would be a mistake.

In other words: Chickpea water. Now, in Dallas and around the country, aquafaba is becoming part of the bartender’s toolkit – and while patrons might struggle to tell the difference, bartenders say it offers distinct advantages over egg white.

As detailed on his site Aquafaba.com, it was Indiana software engineer Goose Wohlt who sparked aquafaba’s popularity in 2015 after finding a French chef’s video showing how the liquid from beans, or hearts of palm, could be used, in tandem with starch and gum, to make a vegan meringue for a chocolate mousse. After some experimentation, he found that chickpea liquid could be used all by itself to achieve the same effect – and posted his discovery to a popular vegan Facebook page.

It’s since spawned a fervent vegan following and a persnickety, fast-growing Facebook group with 83,000 members who share and celebrate aquafaba’s culinary possibilities. “Please don’t thank us for adding you to the group!” reads a post pinned to the top of the group’s discussion page. “Posts like that will be deleted, and a comment on this post only clutters up the questions people may have. Thank us by diving into your kitchens and creating something AQUAFABULOUS!”

It’s all good: Drained chickpeas on the right, highly usable cocktail goodness on the left.

At Uptown’s Standard Pour, assistant manager Reid Lewis came across aquafaba after feeling compelled to seek egg-white alternatives “with the surge of veganism and healthy eating and people being conscious of all that.”

She started using it for Whiskey Sours and even the painstaking Ramos Gin Fizz, but it didn’t actually appear on a menu until By Any Other Name, a New Year’s Eve menu option including gin, sweet vermouth, lemon and pink peppercorn.

At Shoals Sound & Service in Deep Ellum, bar manager Omar Yeefoon, who is vegan, has made aquafaba a firmly embedded feature at his classic-cocktails-minded bar. There, it helps make the Pisco Sour – anchored by gorgeously floral Caravedo Torontel pisco – a silky swig of beauty.

In cooking, egg whites are added for texture, generating a mix of airiness and lift that enhance the dish. In cocktails, they produce a layer of velvety foam that’s visually striking and soft on the palate, one that can be garnished with a splash or swirl of bitters, or a sprig of thyme. “The fat from eggs soaks up flavor,” Yeefoon says. “That makes a Sour (cocktail) soft and nice.”

A tale of two Sours: On the left, a Whiskey Sour made with egg white; on the right, the same with aquafaba.

But egg white has its disadvantages, and not just for vegans: One shortcoming is a faint, off-putting aroma that some compare to wet metal or even wet dog. That’s easily counteracted with a splash of aromatic bitters, or an herb or floral garnish, since the foam layer doubles as a convenient canvas. It’s a happy union.

Aquafaba, like egg white, acts as an emulsifier and a foaming agent. But bartenders say it freezes well and offers better consistency and efficiency without altering the taste of the drink.

Shoals Sound & Service
At Deep Ellum’s Shoals Sound & Service, owner Omar Yeefoon, who is vegan, began replacing egg white with aquafaba for drinks like this Pisco Sour.

“It’s almost hard to tell the difference,” Yeefoon says. “The texture is nice, without that fat blocking a lot of the sharp edges. It doesn’t interfere with the other ingredients as much as egg white does, either.”

With an egg-white cocktail, bartenders start with a “dry shake,” shaking the egg white and ingredients without ice to start the emulsification. Some begin by shaking the egg white solo, then adding the other ingredients, except for the ice, and shaking again. Then the ice is added for a final shake before straining into a glass.

With aquafaba, the process is much the same. Osorio actually skips the dry shake altogether, shaking the aquafaba, ice and other ingredients simultaneously. And most say the process doesn’t take as long as egg white, using anywhere from one-third to half an ounce of aquafaba per drink.

Christine Farkas of Canada-based IHeartFood consulting uses aquafaba mostly for cooking, but she’s dabbled in cocktails as well, preparing her foam with sugar before combining it with the rest of the ingredients for shaking. (Her recipe for a Pineapple Pisco Sour, which includes a lime aquafaba preparation, can be found here.)

“When it comes to aquafaba, you can’t over whip it,” says Farkas, who I met at last year’s International Association of Culinary Professionals’ annual conference. “You can whip it up; it has structure. And if it deflates, you just whip it up again. It’s one of those cost-effective ingredients, a byproduct we would normally be tossing out.”

aquafaba
Osorio puts the finishing swirls on a new mezcal drink that features aquafaba in place of egg white to create a smooth foam layer for garnishing.

It’s no coincidence, then, that a chickpea salad sandwich appeared on Shoals’ minimalist menu soon after Yeefoon started using aquafaba. While he prefers canned chickpea water (for the preservatives), Osorio of The Theodore, which also offers hummus, procured raw chickpeas from the kitchen and let them sit in water for a couple of days, oozing proteins, to make his own.

Reaction has been positive. “People find it really cool that you can work around their lifestyle,” Lewis says. “It’s nice to have that flexibility behind the bar and make sure there’s something for everybody.”

Both Standard Pour and The Thedore plan to add aquafaba cocktails to their spring menus. Osorio’s, shown above, features mezcal, lime, agave syrup, Yellow Chartreuse, orange blossom water, tarragon and a few dashes of a beet-ginger cordial.

“People are really surprised,” Osorio says. “Especially the vegans. Because when you make things their way, they get excited.”

Here’s how to make a Whiskey Sour using aquafaba:

INGREDIENTS
2 oz bourbon
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup
1/3 to 1/2 oz aquafaba

Add ingredients to a shaker with ice and shake vigorously for about 30 seconds. Strain into a glass (iced, if you prefer) and garnish with half an orange wheel and a maraschino cherry.

 

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Events, Food and spirits, Knox-Henderson, Tequila, You gotta eat

Henry’s Majestic’s spirit-paired dinner has your tequila cravings covered

Avión tequila, Henry's Majestic
One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, more.

If you like dinner with your tequila, then boy, does Henry’s Majestic have a treat for you: On Wednesday, Jan. 24, the Knox-Henderson mainstay will present “A Majestic Agave Dinner” – a four-course dinner featuring dishes paired with varying expressions of Avion tequila.

Expect cocktails such as a prickly pear Paloma or a tequila Old Fashioned spiced up with a pistachio orgeat to accompany delicious sounding dishes like a curried lamb empanada or a cocoa-crusted venison.

Tickets are $85 per person. Call 469-893-9400 or email info@henrysmajestic.com for more information.

Cocktails are everywhere, Food and spirits, Fort Worth, The maturing scene

I’ll have another: Fort Worth Cocktail Week returns for second annual run

Sean Conner, for The Establishment
The coming week is a celebration of Fort Worth’s booming craft-cocktail scene — and an homage to the kinship between craft bartenders and chefs.

Thompson’s Bookstore. Proper. The Usual. Basement Lounge.

You may have noticed that Fort Worth has a cocktail scene. And while it’s not nearly on the scale of Dallas’ ever-expanding arena, DFW’s western half does have one thing the Big D does not: A cocktail week.

The second annual Fort Worth Cocktail Week kicks off Saturday, even bigger and tastier than its predecessor. Each of six nights’ worth of events will be complemented by chef-designed dishes, with a portion of each night’s proceeds going to charity.

Second time around: This time featuring six signature events, plus chef-driven food.

While billed as “a celebration of our city’s booming craft-cocktail scene,” the week – which runs through next Friday, Oct. 20 – is also a tribute to the kinship between chefs and craft bartenders, both of whom prize fresh and local ingredients and attention to detail and history.

The week will feature a repeat of last year’s five signature ticketed events in addition to one newcomer: Saturday’s “Sips” event, which will highlight before- and after-dinner drinks and cocktails. That event will join a lineup that already spotlights tiki drinks, bourbon, gin, vodka, agave spirits and Texas-based spirits.

Organizers are partnering with local arts and nonprofit organizations like Fort Worth Opera, The Cliburn and Amphibian Stage Productions, each of which will receive part of the ticket proceeds from one of the week’s events. Tickets are available here.

Here’s a list of the week’s events:

Saturday, Oct. 14: “Sips,” 5-8 p.m. at Proper, 409 W. Magnolia. Tickets: $20

The evening will highlight aperitifs and digestifs, from cognacs to Italian bitter liqueurs, “in an indulgent celebration of exquisite before- and after-dinner libations.” Drinks will be complemented by dishes from Fixture owner and chef Ben Merritt, two-time winner of Fort Worth magazine’s Top Chef competition.

Monday, Oct. 16:  Texas Spirits Tasting Party, 6-9 p.m. at Mopac Event Center, 1615 Rogers Road. Tickets: $15-20

This showcase of Lone Star State spirits will feature bites from chef Nico Sanchez (Meso Maya, Taqueria La Ventana), whose latest concept, TorTaco, recently opened in Fort Worth.

Tuesday, Oct. 17: Bourbon Bash, 6-9 p.m. at Thompson’s Bookstore, 900 Houston St. Tickets: $15-20

Bourbons will be the star of this Old World-themed evening at Thompson’s downtown, whether alone or in cocktails. Samples of harder-to-find whiskeys will also be available for an extra charge. The evening’s food will come from chef David Hollister (Yucatan Taco Stand, Gas Monkey Bar and Grill).

Wednesday, Oct. 18: Tiki Drink Rum Party, 6-9 p.m. at The Usual, 1408 W. Magnolia. Tickets: $15-20

A night focusing on the resurgent tropical cocktail trend will be paired with dishes from chef Juan Rodriguez of Magdalena’s Supper Club.

Thursday, Oct. 19: Bartenders Without Borders, 6-9 p.m. at Salsa Limon Distrito, 5012 White Settlement Road. Tickets: $15-20

Agave-based spirits like mezcal and tequila will anchor the evening, including small-batch selections. Chef Keith Grober, former head chef at Rodeo Goat, will provide Mexican street-style food.

Friday, Oct. 20: Gin vs. Vodka Party, 6-9 p.m. at The Foundry District, 2624 Weisenberger St. Tickets: $15-20

Advertised as “a bare-knuckle brawl for the soul of the martini,” this evening will showcase the history, flavors and versatility of the classic clear spirits. Chef Stefan Rishel, head chef at Texas Bleu in Keller, will provide the munchies.

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