For much of recent history, fine drink in the context of fine food has meant wine, and many a tome have been written about the right and wrong ways to pair the two.
But these ideas about right and wrong are evolving and expanding. Increasingly, people believe that there should be no such thing as traditional wine and food pairings. MW Tim Hanni is one outspoken critic, dismissing the concept altogether. He was quoted in The Drinks Business in 2019, stating, “A perfect wine pairing doesn’t exist. We’re doing a lot of damage the way we’re matching wine and categorizing it.”
While wine pairings still dominate in most fine-dining settings, nonalcoholic (NA) beverages have skyrocketed in popularity, and other categories of alcoholic drinks continue improving and attracting new audiences. Consumer tastes and drinks professionals’ expertise are broadening and diversifying. Today, beverages beyond wine are increasingly being used as pairing options, highlighting different sets of complementary flavors and experiences.
The authors Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page acknowledged long ago that fine drink doesn’t always have to be wine, compiling a much larger world of consumables in their book What to Drink with What You Eat, published in 2006. In the preface, they wrote, “We firmly believe that the more ideas you take into account, the more likely you are to have some good (or even great) ones from which to choose. Our hope is to help you extend the realm of gastronomy at play in your daily life by encouraging you to explore a whole new world of offerings of wine, beer, cocktails, coffee, tea, and even water.”
Nearly two decades later, this perspective provides a useful source of inspiration to beverage professionals interested in expanding their approach to pairings.
In Healdsburg, California, Wyatt Keith, the executive chef at The Rooftop at Harmon Guest House, is intentional about highlighting nonwine beverages. He explains, “While we are located at the heart of Sonoma wine country, we know that people tend to look for something to cleanse their palate after a long day of wine tasting. Our menu was designed to play nicely with cocktails; nothing is too heavy.”
He and his culinary team like preparing shareable dishes and cocktails. Asked how he approaches a spirits pairing menu differently than he would a wine pairing menu, Keith explains that a menu is often written to bring out the nuances and flavors that are naturally present in a particular wine, but, in creating cocktail pairings, his team works in reverse. To complement a Thai basil chicken bao, for example, they developed a basil-cucumber Martini featuring Italian basil. Both types of basil offer pepper notes, and the cucumber provides a cooling effect. Oysters are a popular item at the restaurant, and the cocktail menu includes several drinks that are similarly light and refreshing.
One of Keith’s favorite spirits to work with is mezcal. Its smokiness can enhance food, and in cocktails it marries well with fruit. That said, he admits that vodka is probably the easiest to pair with food given its neutral flavor, which makes it easy to disguise when mixed with other ingredients.
Paul Iglesias is the sommelier and owner of Parche Oakland, in Oakland, California, where he pairs contemporary Colombian food with beer and specialty cocktails rather than wine. In pairing cocktails, he says, “It’s easy to split them into light and dark spirits and start there. You’re likely to do more infusions with lighter spirits, and more washes, like fat washes, such as Milk Punch, with darker spirits.”
Guests love Parche’s spirit-focused pairing menus, in which each course is accompanied by a small-format cocktail. Over the winter holidays last year, one pairing menu was particularly well received. The team at Parche created four individual bites for dinner items and paired them with four different cocktails, following the trend of lighter to darker spirits, and inspired by holiday flavors, such as winter spices and citrus.
Parche has also developed different rum and mezcal flights that pair well with its food. The possibilities afforded by cocktails are endless. To create a cocktail that is purely banana-focused, for example, a bartender can infuse the liquor with banana, use a banana liqueur, create a banana syrup, or garnish the drink with dehydrated banana. Iglesias says, “I love working with spirits, because they can transfer flavors from the kitchen to the bar. While wine pairs extremely well with food—and there’s no judgment on wine pairings or wine itself—cocktails allow for more manipulation. You can create your own ideal flavors for a pairing, showcasing incredible versatility. The number of different things you can do is mind-blowing.”
El Destilado, in Oaxaca, Mexico, is well known for its mezcal and food pairings, offering 18-course meals with a mezcal pairing for nearly each course, such as Papalome mezcal, fermented in rawhide, with steak. The beverage director Jason Cox offers one bit of advice: “Don’t pair mezcal with spicy foods, because it can amp the spice level out of control.”
Beer offers qualities distinct from those of wine. Because of its low acidity, it is an ideal pairing for spicy food. Lagers and pilsners tend to be broadly pairable, while a brown ale can marry well with fried or salty foods—think fish-and-chips. Belgian lambic beers often are fruit flavored and may complement desserts of similar flavors, such as cherry or raspberry. A porter or stout can pair well with foods that are briny, such as oysters, or decadent and rich, such as chocolate.
Ciders made from apples or pears have a long history of complementing crêpes in the Normandy region of France, supporting the adage that if it grows together, it goes together.
Sake has long been a respected beverage in fine-dining settings. The Michelin-starred Sushi Nakazawa, with locations in New York City, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, features omakase dining, with menus in the $120 to $150 range. The beverage director, Dean Fuerth, works with more than 100 sake vendors to pair sakes with the multicourse meals.
Paul Tanguay, a US-based sake expert, says that Junmai is the best sake for food pairing because of its higher acidity compared with other styles. He explains, “It works with meat, fried foods like tempura, and richer sauces—even cream sauce. You do need to be aware that its sweetness varies and to select a sake of appropriate sweetness or dryness.”
A helpful tool for selecting an appropriate style is a sake’s nihonshu-do, or sake meter value (SMV). This measurement indicates a sake’s relative sweetness or dryness, ranging from minus 15 (very sweet) to plus 15 (very dry). Very sweet sakes, especially if they are higher in alcohol (17% to 20% ABV), tend to pair well with desserts, while drier sakes are the better option with high-acidity foods, such as ceviche.
Tea is a complex beverage that offers many pairing possibilities. Brian Hay is a chef and sommelier who documents many of his thoughts on tea and food pairings on his website, Art of the Pair. He explains that matching a component of the tea and food can be a good method for finding appropriate pairings. He identifies key components as “sweetness, acidity, mouthfeel, flavors, aromas, body or weight, and finish or length.”
After sampling a tea called Vintage Dragonwell, for example, Hay felt that it would match well with a grilled pesto-marinated chicken thigh. He explains, “The acidity, sweetness, aromas, and finish match each other. Pesto on your palate tends to be long lasting, similar to the Dragonwell’s finish.”
He adds that he lets the beverage guide his direction and creative process to determine the best way to showcase the tea, and that he tries to be open-minded and evaluate each tea on its merit. Still, it’s most important to experiment with different options to see if they work.
The world of nonalcoholic beverage options continues to explode, as more people opt to not drink alcohol or to drink less. Innovators are filling the former void in this space, making better nonalcoholic wines, beers, and spirits to offer an array of flavors and textures without the effects of alcohol.
ISH Spirits, a nonalcoholic brand founded in Denmark, has alcohol-free Mexican Agave (a replacement for tequila), London Botanical Spirit (gin), and Caribbean Spiced (rum), offering a simple way to create such classic cocktails as the French 75, Paloma, and Daiquiri without alcohol. The Brooklyn-based distiller St. Agrestis makes the popular Phony Negroni and Amaro Falso, whose bittersweet botanical notes make them excellent pairings. Even without alcohol, a Negroni pairs nicely with cheese and cured meats, and amaro pairs well with a range of desserts.
As the nonalcoholic beverage market continues growing rapidly and consumer tastes keep evolving, the opportunities for pairing beverages beyond wine will only expand. Beverage professionals can use pairings not only to delight guests but also to introduce them to unfamiliar drinks. A pairing menu or even a simple suggestion from a sommelier or server can create a low-risk chance for guests to try something new.
Dornenburg, Andrew, and Karen Page. What to Drink with What You Eat. Hachette Book Group, 2006.
Shaw, Lucy. “Tim Hanni MW: Food and wine pairing is bullsh*t.” February 19, 2019. https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2019/02/tim-hanni-mw-food-and-wine-pairing-is-bullsht/.
Photo credit: Parche Oakland