THE COOKBOOK TEST #0029: GOOD DRINKS
INSTALLMENT #0029 (PAID) THE APPEAL OF BEING EXCLUSIVE / IS IT REALLY DRINKING? / NECTAR OF THE GODS / DON’T TOUCH MY CAR KEYS
Dear Subscribers,
One of the few really inarguable things that I have going in my favor is that I will essentially eat or drink anything. I tend to avoid octopi and squid because I’ve emotionally decided that they’re cat- or dog-level intelligent and lovable, but I’ll eat them if I must. I don’t want to ever eat tripe again, but if confronted with tripe in a professional setting, I’ll give it yet another pointless shot. I’ve tried brains and I’m not a fan, so that may be a rare “skip” for me (blame my mostly irrational fear of prions in this case.) I’ve tried and almost barfed up lutefisk, so that’s off the menu, along with any other lye-cured or rotten Scandinavian fish.
But with those few (and mostly partial) exceptions, I’m game for just about anything under the sun. And that includes all manner of plant-based and otherwise “fake” meats, vegan what-have-you, sugar-free desserts and - this is the relevant bit for this week’s column - non-alcoholic drinks.
A True Thing about art is that stylistic restrictions aren’t merely chains - they’re also guidelines and suggestions, a way to sort signal from noise and to infuse meaning and creativity into an already established format. In the same way, if I have to compose a recipe or menu that is meat-free or dairy-free or alcohol-free, it’s momentarily annoying and then I think, well, hey - it’s an opportunity to play with new flavors, surf around some new ingredients, and discover some new tastes.
There are some parallels, I think, between the world of vegan cooking and the world of non-alcoholic cocktails - the highs are not quite as high, but the lows are never nearly as low. I’ve had some bad Chinese food and mediocre dim sum (let’s say a 2 or 3 on a 1-10 scale) and some really good stuff as well (9 or 10.) At the couple of vegetarian dim sum spots I’ve visited, everything was comfortably between a 6 and an 8. No gristle, no unpleasantly fatty bits, nothing that tasted “off” - no soaring epiphanies, either, but everything was somewhere between nice and “pretty damn good,” and that’s no small accomplishment.
GOOD DRINKS: ALCOHOL-FREE RECIPES FOR WHEN YOU’RE NOT DRINKING FOR WHATEVER REASON will, based on my experimentation, never quite take you to the Land of the Perfectly Made Martini or the Expertly Crafted Old Fashioned. That said, it will take you to many other lovely places that are worth visiting and exploring - this is a cookbook written with a great deal of care and precision, and author Julia Bainbridge takes care to put together some cocktails that are relatively easy to craft using little more than citrus juice and other household staples and other cocktails that require custom food additive orders from Amazon or careful shopping in an extensively provisioned Asian market.
Ingredients called for at various points include red miso, shiso leaves, umeboshi vinegar, beech mushrooms, buckwheat tea, ripe Bosc pears, sorghum molasses, and much, much more - while there are plenty of easy-to-execute cocktails in Good Drinks, there are plenty more that really dig into the pantry and produce section of the specialty grocery store.
Good Drinks isn’t interested just in simple or easy non-alcoholic drinks to make your non-alcoholic guests shut up and quit complaining about your limited beverage options - it’s interested in really building layers of complex and sometimes savory flavor that would be compelling to any guest of any persuasion under just about any circumstances.
At your service,
James
GOOD DRINKS: ALCOHOL-FREE RECIPES FOR WHEN YOU’RE NOT DRINKING FOR WHATEVER REASON
BY JULIA BAINBRIDGE
TEN SPEED PRESS | 2020 | $23
Getting right to the heart of the matter: is the process of drinking non-alcoholic drinks really drinking?
I’ve thought about this a lot. I am from Wisconsin, home to around 40 of the drunkest counties in the nation. As a graduate of UW-Madison, I feel comfortable saying that I am a true product of my homeland, able to handle my alcohol and able to do so in reasonably large quantities. As such, I can say this: there is a kind of “drinking” that alcohol-free drinking can never begin to approximate. It’s that hours-long roller coaster of “talkative!” and “affectionate!” and “singing stuff!” and “really randomly hungry!” and “aware that Consequences are around the corner!” and then either “hydrating” or “facing Consequences now and/or tomorrow morning!”
Navigating the Candyland-like Road of Drinking takes some skill, some luck, and some body chemistry, and it’s fun when you’re doing it competently with competent friends. If you haven’t seen the movie Another Round, I wholeheartedly recommend it as the smartest, most honest look at drinking ever made - it explores everything from camaraderie to rage to despair to real joy in a way that feels natural and raw and honest. Another Round isn’t there to judge drinking, it’s just there to document it.
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