Mixology Monday: Food Pairings

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Mixology Monday: Pairings

To be honest with you, I didn’t really have much of a chance to prepare for this month’s Mixology Monday. In fact, when Natalie emailed me a reminder earlier today, my first thought was, “Oh, f*ck!”. And as much as I loves me some Mixology Monday, I’ve been a little out of the loop this week. There are a few reasons for this:

  1. I’ve been very busy with the bar.
  2. I’ve been very busy building websites.
  3. Today is my birthday.

However, I was able to put something together on the fly while making dinner tonight. This might come as a shock to some of you, coming from a lowly barkeep and all, but I’m actually a fairly adept cook. So while I was putting together dinner, I whipped up a cocktail with some of the ingredients I had in my liquor cabinet. And to my surprise it turned out pretty okay. In fact, I think this would be a wonderful first course.

The food:

Butter Leaf Salad

With buttermilk-tarragon dressing, late-summer tomatoes and country bacon

¼ cup buttermilk
¼ cup sour cream
¼ cup mayonnaise
1½ tbsp apple cider vinegar
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 tsp kosher salt
1 tbsp freshly chopped tarragon

Whisk ingredients together in a non-reactive bowl. Cover and chill in a refrigerator for one hour to meld flavors.

Meanwhile, slice ½ pound bacon into thick chunks and cook over medium-high heat until fat is rendered and bacon is near crisp. Drain of fat and pat dry with a towel.

Seed tomatoes and dice. Let drain and set aside.

Toss washed butter leaf lettuce with dressing. Garnish with tomatoes and bacon.

I liked the idea of the lemon juice and sparkling wine cutting the fat of the dressing and the bacon. I went with the Herbsaint because I thought it would pair well with the anise notes of the tarragon, and given that Herbsaint is one of the drier absinthe substitutes out there I think it pairs really well with this particular salad.

Try it for yourself and let me know what you think in the comments. Thanks for reading, and thank you for hosting, Natalie!

Herbsaint-Scented French 75 Print Me

  • 3 oz dry sparkling wine
  • 1½ oz gin
  • 1 oz fresh lemon juice
  • 1 oz simple syrup
  • Herbsaint
  1. Rinse chilled champagne flute with Herbsaint or other anise-flavored liqueur. Combine gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and sparkling wine and stir with cracked ice until chilled. Strain into flute and garnish with lemon twist.

Recipe printed courtesy of jeffreymorgenthaler.com

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