Robb Walsh discusses the Cocktail

[FoodMan]

From today’s TX Digest:

Houston Press' Cover Story

Mixing It Up

Robb Walsh writes this enjoyable piece about the cocktail, why we love it in Houston, where it came from and where it fits on a dinner menu in the 21st century.

The article has a lot of info delivered Walsh style with humor, smarts and style. He starts of in Houston’s T’afia, chats with the man himself Ferran Adria, then off to NY and Gramercy Tavern and back to the south to New Orleans and Houston. With more Avant Garde cuisine influences the lines between chef and pastry chef and Garde Manger have all but gone. Looks like the line between bartender and chef is becoming more and more blurred as well!

What did you think about the article?

Do you drink cocktails with food?

I do drink a margarita with Tex-Mex food but wine or beer with everything else. After reading this account, I might actually try more cocktails with my meals especially at places like Noe and T’afia.

Elie

[fifi]

That is quite a story. It is pretty hard to see where the cocktail merges into a serving of food.

Kinda puts a whole new spin on "liquid lunch."

I suppose that, other than the ubiquitous Margarita (which I love when well made with fresh squeezed lime), I really don't drink cocktails with my food. Actually, I don't drink them much at all, preferring wine or beer with food. So, I suppose I am stuck in the tradition of the cocktail being a before or after. I may need to rethink that.

[FoodMan]

I made the the Ratafia from the article this past weekend. It should be ready to drink by the 24th of April, I will report back. Already it smells so good and looks pretty appetizing. If this works out, the possibilities are endless (thinking about the Meyer Lemon tree in the backyard.....)

Elie

[slkinsey]

Thanks for the article, Elie. I think I must have missed it the first time around.

As ever, Rob has some interesting things to say -- as do some of the people he quotes in the article. I'm not so sure I agree, however, when he says that "Houston is on the cutting edge of the new cocktail trend." He also says that Texans "drink more than twice as much distilled spirits as we do wine. And if you figure that those spirits are diluted in cocktails, you realize that by volume we probably drink six times more cocktails than wine." This didn't seem quite right to me. Although I am a New Yorker by choice and a Massachusetts yankee by birth, most of my extended family is in Texas, and my parents have lived in "Houston for around 15 years now. I did some digging. According to the Texas Safety Network, Texans drank 26 gallons of beer, 1 gallon of liquor, 1.5 gallons of wine and 1.5 gallons of malt liquor (i.e., Colf 45, Zima, etc.) per capita in 2003. This, and all the other statistical evidence I've seen (e.g., here and here) portray Texas as an overwhelmingly beer-drinking state, with liquor bringing up the rear. Experience tells me that much of this liquor is consumed in the form of shots and frozen margaritas.

Anyway, that's really a minor quibble. The article is overall a very good one, with some provocative statements from a few notables. I found this an interesting one:

"Cooking techniques have come into the world of cocktailing -- this is an authentic revolution," Adria told me via an electronic interview. "We can say that in Spain there has been real innovation in the field of cocktails. As it happened with cooking, it will take seven or eight years for this trend to develop. But I believe that our work, in hands of good barmen, will yield incredible results. We've simply outlined the foundations."

Although one cannot discount Adria's culinary importance, I'm not sure he is destined to be a major figure in the evolution of the modern cocktail. On the other hand, I'd be interested to hear whether others think the idea of "deconstructed cocktails" and "melting essences" and that sort of thing are likely to become dominant paradigms. Walsh describes Adria's deconstructed piña colada as little pieces of pineapple sorbet, coconut foam and rum Jell-O lined up on a soup spoon that "become a cocktail" when you chew them in your mouth and mix them together.

Danny Meyer also contributed some interesting stuff. Walsh characterizes Meyer as "one of the main forces behind the cocktail revolution in New York. I would imagine this is more due to the cocktails served at his restaurants, which were among the first to do cocktails themed with the restaurant's food, than his mixological skills.

"We started trying to come up with cocktails that expressed the idea of the restaurant back at Union Square in 1985," Meyer recalls. At Mediterranean-inspired Union Square Cafe, the theme drink was an Italian Prosecco cocktail with French strawberry liqueur and a wild strawberry garnish. At the Indian fusion restaurant Tabla, it was the Masala Mary. "The drink list should be a megaphone for the concept of the restaurant," he told me over the phone.

I had never considered this before, but it's a very interesting point. I wonder what others think about the importance of Danny Meyer's group in the cocktail revival. It was somewhat interesting, and unexpected, to read an article about the underpinnings of the cocktail movement in NYC without hearing the name Dale DeGroff.

[spiritchild]

In regard to Adria's deconstructed cocktails and in particular to his deconstructed piña colada, I feel that it fails to recognize an important aspect of the cocktail. IMO, a cocktail has two important functions. 1-It whets the appetite and primes the palate for what is to come. (In this way, I think that The Danny Meyers group has hit on an important concept by molding their cocktail programs around their cuisines.)

2- A cocktail provides an experience. It encourages conversation and laughter...in a way it lubricates the mechanics of human interaction.

By Adria's placing each of the components side by side and asking the diner to "eat" the components and form the cocktail in the mouth, he reduces the experience to a few seconds' worth of chewing. I'm sure those few seconds are extremely enjoyable to the tastebuds but the whole point of the cocktail, the sipping, the golden color of a sidecar or the icy clarity of a martini, or the sexy line of a martini glass, is lost. While I would give anything (well almost) to experience dinner at el Bulli, I don't think I'm a huge fan of these "inovations" in cocktails. I find them to dehumanize the whole experience.

[Pan]

[...]By Adria's placing each of the components side by side and asking the diner to "eat" the components and form the cocktail in the mouth, he reduces the experience to a few seconds' worth of chewing.  I'm sure those few seconds are extremely enjoyable to the tastebuds but the whole point of the cocktail, the sipping, the golden color of a sidecar or the icy clarity of a martini, or the sexy line of a martini glass, is lost.  While I would give anything (well almost) to experience dinner at el Bulli, I don't think I'm a huge fan of these "inovations" in cocktails.  I find them to dehumanize the whole experience.

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You wouldn't want to try it once in order to have a different experience? I would definitely try it once, if I had the chance. Unfortunately, there's the matter of expense...

[FoodMan]

I also do not think the "deconstructed" cocktail is a true cocktail. I am sure it is excellent and hopefully I will try something resembling it this summer at El Bulli, but to answer Sam's query, I do not think it will ever take the place if the traditional, liquid cocktail. Another aspect of drinking a cocktail, in addition to what Spitfire mentioned, is the time it takes to enjoy one, to swirl the ice cubes in a glass and hear the light clinking sound as the ice slowly melts....

A "course" in a menu will never replace that.

Elie

[LindyCat]

On the other hand, I'd be interested to hear whether others think the idea of "deconstructed cocktails" and "melting essences" and that sort of thing are likely to become dominant paradigms.

I'm sure I can come up with an opinion on that just as soon as I stop laughing.