A three-course menu

Words by: Jonathan J Ellison, Baker Street

I am the head bartender at Preston's most popular bar and it's on me to keep coming up with new drinks to shock and delight. Unfortunately with the lockdown in progress, I've got ideas filling up my notebook. This collection of drinks comes from a cocktail book I'm writing as part of my work at Baker Street.

Food Cocktails: A three course menu

The brief, well sort of, went something like this:

So I wake up one morning (mid-afternoon) with a message.

Dave (bar owner): 'Have you done food cocktails before'

Me (Bartender): 'Yeah, why?'

What I mean is I've got a theoretical knowledge but I've always wanted to try it; and so my first foray into fat washing begins.
Fat washing is a way of infusing the savoury flavours from oily foods like bacon into alcohol. We do this by adding any oils and fats to the spirit, freeze and strain out any solidified fat.

Development

I came up with a few ideas good and bad...A beans on toast Bloody Mary, now I've heard that there are no mistakes only learning experiences, that being said, there's a reason it's not been done before.

Cheesy garlic bread Martini - with this I thought I'd gone too far, but now it's one of my favourite drinks.

Paella, my thoughts are that I can use its key ingredients to create a complex drink plus I really like chorizo and saffron is more expensive than gold, that's a no-brainer.

Pork scratchings - now this didn't come to fruition for two reasons.

My thoughts with this was that essentially it's a pub snack and a cocktail would bring the flavour away from that environment. Secondly, half of the enjoyment comes from the texture and I'd lose that in a drink.

"Rich Tea Biscuits! Make me a cocktail that tastes like Rich Tea biscuits" – that came from Michelle, the GM; and when your GM likes Rich Tea biscuits, enough said.

A three course menu

Starter

Side Order Gibson
50ml Cheesy garlic butter Gin*
12.5ml Lillet Blanc

Method:
Stir with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with three small cocktail onions on a skewer.

*Cheesy garlic butter gin
700ml Beefeater Dry Gin
250g salted butter
2tsp Very Lazy Garlic
50g grated Parmigiano Reggiano

Method:
1. Melt the butter with the garlic in a pan. Stir in the cheese and carry on stirring for around five minutes at a low temperature.
2. Strain out the cheese and pour liquid into the gin. Leave in the freezer for 12 hours and strain through a cheese cloth and then a coffee filter.

Main course

Spanish Manhattan

50ml Chorizo Bourbon*
12.5ml Saffron Vermouth (Leave a loose tea infuser with four strands of saffron in 350ml of Martini Bianco for 12 hours)

Method: stir ingredients with ice and strain over cubed ice into a rocks glass smoked with fresh and dried rosemary. Singe a sprig of fresh rosemary and lay over the top of the glass.

*Chorizo Bourbon
2X 225g Spicy Chorizo Ring
700ml Jim Beam White Label
1tsp sunflower oil

Method:
1. Roughly chop chorizo and fry in oil
2. Pour the oil and fats from the chorizo into 500ml of bourbon and place the chorizo in the remaining 200ml. strain out the chorizo and add to the other 500ml of bourbon
3. Place bourbon in the fridge for 12 hours and run through two coffee filters

Desert

The Rich Tea Flip

50ml Remy Martin
12.5ml English Breakfast Tea syrup*
1 whole egg

Method: Reverse dry shake all ingredients and strain into a tall flute. Garnish with grated nutmeg.

*English Breakfast Tea syrup
Ingredients
350ml water
350g Demerara sugar
4 tea bags

Method: Brew 4 tea bags in 350ml of boiling water for an hour. Remove tea bags and bring mixture to the boil. Stir in 350g of Demerara sugar until dissolved then leave to cool (this syrup also works well in an Old Fashioned).