Recently in Food Category

So there I was, lying on the Chesterfield in an unambitious state, on a Sunday afternoon, thinking I should be doing something other than vegetating and watching TV. Mixology Monday, being hosted by the Liquid Muse, was on my mind, because I had yet to come up with a good food and cocktail pairing. True to form though, I always leave my topic for Mixology Monday to the absolute last minute. Procrastination is so rewarding! Anyway, I was watching the Food Network and one of my favorite programs came on, Good Eats. Alton Brown has provided the inspiration for today's Mixology Monday, pretzels. Now I just need a cocktail to go with them.

One of the issues that impedes great cocktail creation is access to quality fresh fruit. Certain parts of the world, like California and Florida, have access to fresh fruit pretty much year round. As for bartenders in more northern climates, it becomes costly to use fresh fruit, plus the quality is mostly lacking after two weeks on a truck and storage in a cavernous warehouse. Because of this there are all sorts of sub-par, sugar loaded and artificially flavoured fruit substitutes out there and they don’t leave much to be desired. They especially don’t make for a good tasting drinks. But luckily there are some quality options out there, including frozen fruit purees from Boiron who sent me a couple of samples to try.

In the summer hamburgers are a mainstay of my diet. They are easy to prepare, the barbecue doesn't heat up the house and there is less mess to clean up. Those seem like good enough reasons to live off of hamburgers, but it's even more so when they taste really good. The trick is to spice things up a bit and certain spirits and wines lend themselves to making burgers taste better. Whisky is a perfect example of one of those spirits, and it is often used in bbq sauce, like Canadian Club Barbeque sauce, which if you can find it, I highly recommend it. The other, not so intuitive, spirit is sweet vermouth. If you want a great burger, you have to try this.

Originally, I was going to make something like a Chocolate Monkey but decided that was a little too basic. So I figured a banana split with liqueur topping might be better, then I decided to mix the liqueur into the ice cream and that's when the Pousse Glace came about. Most people know what a pousse cafe is, and for those that don't, it's a layered drink with five or more liqueurs in a tall cylindrical glass or a pousse cafe glass. Being a bartender, that drink provided the inspiration to make this dessert for "Sugar High Friday". But instead of layering liqueurs, I decided that to make a great dessert, using the layering technique found in the pousse cafe, I would mix those liqueurs with ice cream and then layer them.