Monthly Archives: December 2010
Gourmet Underground Detroit's content archives are organized by date and catalog the aggregated content of our Features pages as well as our blog.
Three tasty hangover remedies
New Years Eve is upon us and by now you’ve likely cemented your plans to get shit-faced drunk somewhere with your friends. But do you have a strategy for dealing with the costs after a long night of heavy drinking?*
The obvious approach is to proactively reduce the effect of overconsumption of alcohol by drinking a glass of water between libations and eating plenty of food to soak up some of that booze. Nevertheless, there is a point when we can be overcome by the evening’s mirth and, somewhere deep in the drunken subliminal, decide to damn the consequences and live in the moment. One should always be prepared for such an occasion.
Were it summer I would suggest, after waking and brushing the hair off of your teeth, that you eat a half of a watermelon while watching a cheesy 80s movie. I have no evidence, other than high water content for rehydration, that watermelon is particularly suited for killing a hangover. It is, however, my personal favorite in-season remedy and has been successful more than once.
Some claim that a couple of Coney dogs with a side of chili fries will get you back on track but this can be a dangerous proposition depending on your level of pain. Use this method only in the case of mild hangovers.
Kombucha tea has everything you need to fight morning-after sickness: B vitamins to increase metabolism, caffeine to restore alertness, and even a wee bit of “Hair of the dog” to re-establish balance. A sparkling kombucha with ginger will also help to settle the stomach. The issue here may be price. Unless you brew your own, drinking four pints of kombucha could cost as much as $16, though this setback might not matter to the truly afflicted.
My most recent discovery in the quest to alleviate binge-drinking symptoms hails from the tropics. Coconut water, the clear, refreshing liquid inside of young, green coconuts, has the faint taste of almonds and ocean breeze. One cup contains more electrolytes than most sports drinks and more potassium than a banana. In fact, it is sometimes used as an intravenous hydration fluid in developing countries where medical saline is unavailable. It is also purported to soothe nauseated tummies. It’s practically a miracle.
A lightly sweetened version with jelly-like bits of pulp is available in many of the local Asian and Mexican groceries. I have purchased it at Kim Nhung Superfoods in Madison Heights as well as Mexicantown Bakery in Southwest Detroit. A 16 ounce can usually sells for about $1. Naturally, I wonder how it could be used in a cocktail.
You’ll often hear that the only cure for a hangover is time. While presumably true, we’ll never stop looking.
*Disclaimer: I am not a scientist, merely a drinker with little self-control.
GUD on WDET This Week
Ever the dutiful drink lovers, Todd and I were asked to participate in a brief roundtable discussion of holiday drinks on local NPR affiliate and generally awesome radio station WDET. Our segment — conducted by WDET reporter Noah Ovshinsky — will be part of a special “holiday food” edition of the Craig Fahle Show, which airs tomorrow, Wednesday, December 22, at 11:00am, and re-airs later that day at 8pm.
An entire hour dedicated to food and drink? Brilliant! We’re aware only of what was covered during our drinks discussion, but I’m confident the whole show will be great. Kudos to the station for paying attention to what those of us in Detroit and its environs eat and drink — a subject that’s increasingly popular and important.
Be sure to tune in, and in the meantime, here are a few drink recipes from our discussion with Noah:
Egg Nogg
If you’ve ever only had egg nog from a plastic jug, you’re missing out. The real deal is flavorful and has an amazing, silky texture from real milk and eggs. This drink was adapted from Jerry Thomas’ Egg Nogg as written about in Imbibe! by David Wondrich.
- 1 Tbsp sugar
- 1 Tbsp cold water
- 1 whole egg
- 2 oz Cognac
- 1 oz rum (Try Appleton gold rum or Mt. Gay Eclipse)
- 3 oz whole or 2% milk
- Fresh nutmeg
Add all the ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Shake very aggressively with ice until the shaker is frosty on the outside and the ingredients are thick and frothy. Strain into a glass with fresh ice, and grate some fresh nutmeg on top. Since we’ll be on NPR, I should note that NPR listeners may remember a segment on the stability of raw eggs this past fall. Eggs from a trusted source (i.e., not processed in a giant factory) pose little danger consumed in drinks. If you’ve never had a raw egg in a cocktail, don’t be squeamish. They’ve been a staple of cocktails for over 150 years. Also, Skim milk is OK, but the extra fat really improves the body of this drink. Finally, dry shaking or ghost shaking can be helpful here: A few quick shakes without ice will help mix the ingredients and form an emulsion with the egg. Then add your ice and proceed.
Todd’s Bourbon Milk Punch
Not sure if you’re ready to make a thick, eggy nogg? Try a milk punch instead. There’s an entire blog post dedicated to this drink — it’s good enough that an entire blog wouldn’t be a bad idea — but the recipe bears repeating:
- 2 oz bourbon (preferably Buffalo Trace)
- 3 oz milk (Todd’s been using raw milk; Calder’s 2% or whole works great)
- 2 tsp maple syrup
- 2 tsp flavoring (if you can get allspice liqueur, use it… otherwise, Meyer’s Dark rum or a few drops of vanilla extract work)
- Fresh nutmeg
Shake the drink with ice, and shake it hard. Strain over fresh ice and top with freshly grated nutmeg.
Celebration Cider
Sparkling beverages add to any festive occasion, but most of them revolve around champagne. I wanted to do something with hard cider instead. A classic drink called a Jack Rose came to mind, which uses applejack with grenadine and lime. This varies this formula a bit and adds a cider topper.
- 1.5 oz Laird’s Applejack
- .5 oz Grenadine (preferably homemade, but definitely don’t use Rose’s)
- .25 oz Lemon juice, freshly squeezed and put through a strainer to remove pulp
- 3 oz Hard cider, thoroughly chilled
In a champagne flute, add the applejack, grenadine, and lemon juice. Pour the cider on top and give it a little stir with a straw or swizzle stick. For the hard cider, I’d recommend using Etienne Dupont’s Cidre Bouché Brut de Normandie, which is readily available in many well-stocked wine and beer shops. Also, don’t mistake applejack for apple brandy like Calvados. Applejack is a bit less refined, and that edge is needed in this drink.
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Enjoy the drinks, and enjoy the holiday edition of the Craig Fahle show. Again, it airs tomorrow, Wednesday, at 11am and 8pm.
Book. Cover. Judge. Alion.
On the surface, it’d be easy to dismiss Vega Sicilia. It’s a big-name winery that scores big points, and the company manages several sub-brands, often signs of a corporate juggernaut that simply produces wines out of a test tube that fit certain perceived market price points.
The most recent brand is Alion, which is managed more scientifically to be drunk younger. Not really the sign of a wine that I’d be excited to try. I sometimes judge a book by a cover — or at least I sometimes pre-judge wine.
Except here’s the thing: It’s pretty damn good.
Alion is 100% Tempranillo, aged in 100% new oak, so it’s a robust wine. But it’s in the barrel for four years, and even the younger vintages are fairly accessible upon release. Retail is around $60, and I don’t know that I’d routinely pay that much for this wine — there are far, far more special wines for less money — but it’s an enjoyable drink. And I happened to receive an older vintage as a gift in the past few months as well, so this past week, we did a little tasting…
- Alion 2004 – Lots of cherry and plum. A very fruity wine without ever verging on sweet. The finish is really, really long. There’s a lot of tannin here, though it’s not wildly astringent. More woody or herbal. Plenty of oaky wines have pushed me away from contemporary wine making, but if every “manipulated” wine were this good, I’d have little problem with it. It’s a very broad sip of wine that really gets itself into every corner of your palate. I purchased this bottle from Elie Wine Company in Royal Oak.
- Alion 1996 – Supposedly all the higher-end Vega Sicilia wines like Unico receive a pretty traditional and rigorous treatment from vine to bottle — low yields, multiple harvests, long aging in older barrels, et cetera. I can’t find any information online about harvests at Alion, which is in a different location from Vega Sicilia itself, but if this vintage is any indication, they’re doing something right. This wine has years left on it, but it’s open and full of cool stuff even now. There’s some toasty oak qualities that are subtle and pleasant. There’s still a lot of fruit, though it’s gotten a bit more acidic and much less jammy than the 2004. A really very elegant wine and a hell of a nice gift.
Cold is not a flavor found in beer
A Brief History of Cold Beer
Cold-fermentation and aging, or lagering, of beer began sometime around the 16th century. To avoid bacterial infection that rendered beer undrinkable, Bavarian brewers were required by law to brew only during the cooler months of the year, between September and May. Throughout summer the beer was stored in deep, stone cellars, sometimes under ice. The yeast adapted to this environment and the result was beer with better clarity and a rounder flavor. Probably served around 50º F straight from the cellar, the beer was cool and tasty.
With the advent of more sophisticated malting techniques, the industrial revolution and artificial refrigeration, lager beer saw a period of rapid growth and soon replaced ale as the beer of choice around most of the globe. Like so many food items during this period of economic expansion, beer changed from a craft product to a commodity overnight. Lower drinking temperatures were part of the bargain.
Image by Matt Hamm
It didn’t take long for green-eyed entrepreneurs to realize that the colder beer was served, the less that could be tasted. Beer was poured colder and colder, slowly becoming blander and cheaper to produce. Beer drinkers barely seemed to notice. Soon, large rival breweries were pitting their homogenized products against each other, backing up the battle with advertising dollars. It is now to the point where, through clever marketing campaigns, we believe cold is actually a flavor. Could it be that the “coldest tasting beer in the world” is, in reality, nothing much more than flavored alcoholic sparkling water?
How Cold Should We Drink Beer?
If you prefer an ice-cold, refreshing drink to also have some booze in it than you can’t go wrong with just about any domestic lager or light lager at 35º-40º F. Most of the big brand import lagers will also fall into this category. This type of beer is engineered to get through a factory system quickly and be consumed as cold as possible. Any inherent flaws from acceleration of a natural process will be more apparent at higher temperatures and the reason most of us believe warm beer tastes like ass.
A good German or Bohemian-style pilsener or craft-brewed domestic lager like Bell’s Lager of the Lakes will be excellent at 40º-45º F and will reveal subtle malt flavors as it warms in the glass. Heartier Bock and Dopplebock lagers should be drunk even warmer to highlight their creamy malt flavors of caramel and ripe red fruits.
Not all beer is lager. In the cooler north of Europe a tradition of ale drinking has been maintained throughout Belgium, northern France and the British Isles. Ales are fermented much warmer than lagers and so display their myriad yeast characteristics – from tropical fruit to spice – at a higher serving temperature. There is a common misconception that English beer is warm and odd. English cask ale is not warm. It is cellar temperature, less carbonated, much of the time lower in alcohol than most beer, and worth seeking out. Berkley Front, Dragonmead and Slows are a few of the local joints where you can score a pint of cask ale.
Many of Detroit’s brewpubs and microbreweries focus on English-style ales, stouts, porters, old ales and barleywines. If you’re drinking these ice cold you are tasting hop bitterness and not much else. 45º-55º F is more like it. Most French country ales should be consumed at 50º-60º F and beyond. It’s the same for Belgian Trappist and specialty ales. Don’t take our word for it. Collect a variety of beer, a thermometer, and a friend or eight in the name of science.
Gourmet Underground Sherry Tasting
Big thanks to Gourmet Underground member Matthew Dibble of Final Five Productions for putting together this video of a recent Hedonistic sherry tasting.
The tasting was held at Suzanne Vier’s Kales Building apartment in Foxtown overlooking Grand Circus Park. As you can see, it was a fabulous time with a mountain of great food and great sherry.
This is what we do.
Les Giroflees
Five or so years ago, I was sitting on a gravel patio in Royal Oak with a group of friends when Putnam walked up with a long, slender bottle of sweet, orange wine. At first, I was appalled: It tasted a little like NutriSweet. Then he presented a fresher example, and in going back and forth between the two, I discovered how the fruit and floral qualities in the latter changed to what was in the former, and they both became beautiful.
The wine was Les Giroflées, a rose produced from the pineau d’aunis grape by Eric Nicolas of Domaine de Bellevue, and it’s been a favorite ever since. In the past few years, though, it’s had one major flaw: Nicolas hasn’t been making the damn stuff.
Enter: the 2009 vintage. Only a few cases made it to the US; only a few of those made it to Michigan; half of one has made it to my house; and one of those bottles is sitting in front of me, open. Santa came a few weeks early this year.
Aromatically, it has the round, softness of an elegant chenin blanc, but it’s tinted with strawberry. It’s a soft, fleshy wine with fruit that just explodes on the palate. I realize now that what I took as NutriSweet initially is an unusual, unique interaction between ripe strawberry flavor and the typical minerality one finds in many Loire Valley wines. That aroma and sensation of freshly broken stone is the same sharp quality I get in artificial sweeteners, but over the course of really falling in love with this wine, those grew distinct. I don’t recall this wine historically having as pronounced a bitter quality — almost like unripe fruit — at the finish, but it’s there just a bit, which nicely offsets that off-dry sweetness that I love so much. There are also some pleasantly tart undertones that linger on the finish after the bottle’s been open an hour or so and warmed up. Very pleasant wine.
I got my bottle of this little treasure, which weighs in at 13.5% abv, at Everyday Wine in Ann Arbor.
A Four Coffee Tour, A Four Coffee Tour
Sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
a tale of a manual drip.
That started in Rwanda and
ended with my sip.
The coffee was from Great Lakes,
of that I am quite sure.
That’s how I started on this
four coffee tour, this four coffee tour.
The Rwandan had fruit and acid, friend,
and showed some bitterness.
But in a very pleasing way,
really just a kiss, really just a kiss.
The next was Costa Rican and
the chocolate showed right through.
When the coffee cooled a bit, it
was so very smooth, was so very smooth.
The third was a delicious blend
of the first two beans.
A nutty, cocoa-flavored cup that
elicits joyful screams, elicits joyful screams.
The tour ended next with a big fat cup of Zen,
with Rwandan…
and the Costa Rican too.
The caffeine caused me strife.
Lots of fruit.
Its yummy and tasty and
here’s the coffee tour’s end!
I don’t know what possessed me to do that. But it was obviously inspired by four coffees I’ve recently had time and again in succession, backwards and forwards. A few weekends back, I asked James from Great Lakes what was fresh that I could buy from him, and he showed up with four bags — sort of a coffee tour. It was a great exercise, and I couldn’t be more pleased that he thought to do that. Some notes:
- Rwandan: It smells fruitier than it ends up being, especially at the onset. As it cools, some of the bitterness fades to a rounder, lightly fruity flavor with a high-acid finish. Very nice stuff with a lot of the qualities I’ve come to love from most of the African coffees I’ve had.
- Costa Rican: I suspect I still haven’t learned to taste through a lot of the bitterness inherent to coffee because yet again, I really start to taste through the whole cup as it cools down. After a few minutes, a wash of chocolate just rips through your tongue. Really very flavorful.
- Rwandan-Costa Rican blend: Very cool. Kind of like a bitter dark chocolate. Some of the acidity shows in the finish, but mostly, it’s layers of chocolate, nutty, fruity sorts of flavors.
- Zen: Both of the beans above are present in the Zen, which I believe also has some Ethiopian Harrar. This is really delicious stuff – some blueberry/currant shows through, but just having tasted the other coffees, I can really taste the chocolate again when I look for it. There’s more going on here than I would have ever given coffee credit for before I was a coffee drinker. A really nice blend.
