Best Alcoholic Foods
These booze-infused foods lend new meaning to the term “liquid diet.”
These booze-infused foods lend new meaning to the term “liquid diet.”
Photo by iStockphoto
Alcoholic Pickles: In 2007, French Culinary Institute head Dave Arnold—a renowned mad scientist of food and cocktails—pioneered a technique for pickling with booze (specifically, gin and vermouth) instead of brine. According to the New York Times, “Each spear has roughly the same amount of alcohol as a standard martini.” They only take a few minutes to make from a fresh cucumber, thanks to Arnold’s high-tech rapid vacuum technique—though it still sounds like a lot more work than just slamming pickleback shots.
Alcoholic Mustard: Sierra Nevada produces a line of mustards infused with its stout, porter, and pale ales. But don’t expect to get drunk off them—if that’s your goal (which, let’s be honest, it is), best to go with 28% alcohol Galander Fine Mustard Liqueur. You might need to travel to Germany to find it, but once you’ve experienced the feeling of getting drunk off a turkey sandwich, you’ll never mess with that Grey Poupon bullshit again.
Alcoholic Barbecue Sauce: You can probably find Jim Beam Barbecue Sauce at your local grocery store, but it contains less than .02% bourbon; Jack Daniel’s Barbecue Sauce clocks in at an even more disappointing 0%. Luckily, Kentucky condiment company Pappy’s has you covered with its Moonshine Madness and XXX White Lightnin, both of which are 3% hooch—”cause that’s all the feds will allow.” Grillmaster Shane Best (aka, Pappy himself) says, “[E]ach batch has just a little hooch to make it tasty, and a little ‘Madness’ just to be cruel to sissies.” Isn’t the South precious?
Photo by iStockphoto
Alcoholic Ketchup: For centuries, all ketchup was alcoholic—with as much as a quart of wine or brandy per gallon, according to the Smithsonian—until high-fructose corn syrup took its place. Why would anybody want to get diabetes when they could get sloshed instead? In the late ’90s, Grand Lyon Enterprises marketed a line of gourmet Bordeaux and zinfandel ketchups (slogan: “Break Open a Bottle of the Good Stuff!”), but the Georgia company went bust a few years later. Good thing that Washington, D.C., restaurant America Eats Tavern is still serving wine-based ketchup from pre-Civil War recipes. They also serve, uh, wine… you know, from a bottle. That’s not a ketchup bottle.
Alcoholic Whipped Cream: If you’re bored with inhaling nitrous oxide from a can of Reddi-wip, check out Whipped Lightning, “the world’s first alcohol-infused whipped cream.” Put it on your pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, and you’ll be extra thankful. It also works for reenacting that semi-nude scene from Varsity Blues. Not that you’ve ever seen that movie.
Photo by iStockphoto
Alcoholic Horseradish: Hrenovuha is a Russian vodka made from horseradish roots, of which numerous slices can be found floating in the bottle. Go ahead and throw ’em on a roast beef sandwich—if you ever need to clear your sinuses, this should do the trick for a couple decades straight.
Photo courtesy of istockphoto.com
Alcoholic Sour Cream? A UK-based product innovation manager at dairy multinational Arla told William Reed Business Media, “There’s room to use alcohol in fermented creams—sour cream and crème fraiche—that’s definitely the way to go.” However, the manager added, “Every trial costs five or six thousand pounds…it’s a fair bit of money to gamble, so you have to be sure it’ll work.” Work? How could this not work? Someone at Taco Bell better jump on this shit like YESTERDAY.
Show me more food!