Jeff Josenhans | Drink Shrink
With the plethora of festive meals recently passed, I’m feeling a slight aversion towards all that food paired with all that beer, wine, or spirits. I’m not gonna lie. My favorite meal throughout the entire “food pairing season” was a carne asada burrito I bought at 1 a.m. mid-Christmas week. Between Christmas, New Year’s and Valentine’s Day, much pairing advice was touted and published, so it actually makes sense that an unpretentious midnight burrito around Christmas could taste so glorious. This lead me to skip the Spring Drinks article and dig deeper into a topic close to my heart – food pairing in the media and in real life.
Food and beverage paired together DO taste amazing under the right circumstances. However, the reality is that most of the chatter is started by people like myself who are pushing our own tasting menus and restaurant experiences. Often the focus is the protein (i.e. the steak or fish) and that information gets interpreted in the media and regurgitated for consumers at home. Pairing in reality is much more complex than two ingredients, and often restaurants create menus in theory but then make adjustments once a trial test has been carried out.
At the Grant Grill, the Chef and I chat in the office, make it and try it in the kitchen, adjust our product orders if need be, and then publish the menu. We do this every week and we are a well-oiled, food-pairing machine.
The consumer does not have this luxury most of the time, nor the knowledge and experience to put that initial theory together. Leave the hardcore food pairing to lame asses in the industry who think it’s a necessity to have an exquisite meal (or people like myself who do it for a living but don’t truly think it’s always going to be your best bet) and follow these guidelines below.
High acid/salt/spicy is BAD for wine. It simply kills the flavors. So a lot of vinegar, soy sauce, or habanero chilies will not make your wine happy. The exception is typically sweet wine, which is lower in alcohol, but how many of you even know what that means (if you do, please email because I am curious)? And how many Mexicans in Mexico or Thais in Thailand actually drink wine with their food? Exactly.
In these cases, stick with beer or cocktails. Cocktails are probably the easiest and hardest pairing because it really means anything and everything. If you just figure out what you think would taste good with a dish, like that rosemary from your back yard, add some alcohol/sugar/maybe lime and you will be probably be just fine.
Wine for the most part is best with blander food. Beer goes with everything – if you like beer. And if you like a wine because it reminds you of someone or something special you will love it regardless of what you eat it with.
In just three years, level 2 CMS Sommelier and Master Mixologist Jeff Josenhans has changed the dynamic in The Grant Grill Downtown from a classic institution to an exciting lounge and elegant restaurant. Taking the kitchen’s “Farm to Table” philosophy to the bar, he has developed a seasonal cocktail program based largely on the hotel’s rooftop garden. He can be reached at [email protected].
