Now, in case you don’t live in a huge city and/or do have a “normal” job that keeps you from all that pesky, cutting-edge day-drinking you’ve be meaning to do; fat-washing is the term for infusing a liquor with a flavorful fatty substance. Simply mix liquor with hot fat, steep overnight, freeze, separate the congealed fat and strain through a cheese cloth. Alcohol can emulsify both fat and water-based flavor compounds, so the spirit will not only retain a subtle trace of the original flavor, but it will have a deliciously silky mouth feel, too. 

I’ve seen the technique go horribly awry, like the last ten over-crisped bacon washed Bourbon cesspools I’ve had pushed on me at various bars. My only advice for those kinds of cocktails, if you’re going to fat wash with bacon, don’t fry it quickly; render it carefully, so as not to scorch the tiny bits, and use the rendered fat along with the meat.

On the other end of the spectrum, Shawn Soole’s creation, the Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup Martini, pushed this technique to the next level by washing a dark rum with an extra cheesy, extra buttery, grilled cheese sandwich and then muddling in a roasted tomato. The first time I read about it (last week; I was veeerryy late to the party) I immediately mixed up some Lost Spirits Navy Style Rum with a piece of grilled potato bread and American cheese. Reflecting on that masterpiece over a pastrami sandwich the next day, I got an idea… and here we are at the Pastrami Sazerac.

First, you need to fat-wash some rye whisky.

• 325mL/half-bottle Straight Rye Whisky – I used Michter’s US*1 Straight Rye.
• 30g unsalted butter
• 25g unseeded or seeded rye bread – That’s roughly one slice.
• 50g pastrami – Making your own is, of course, the best way to go: I like this recipe.
• 60g sliced provolone
• Pinch kosher salt

1. In a non stick pan melt the butter over medium heat until it stops sizzling. That means that the water has evaporated and your bread will brown much more easily in the fat left behind.
2. Throw in the rye bread and pastrami and gently brown, flipping until brown on all sides.
3. Remove bread and meat from pan to glass bowl and rip into small pieces when cool enough to handle.
4. While the pan is still hot throw in the cheese. Resist the urge to play with it. Once it’s bubbling and starting to brown scrape it and all the fat in the pan into the bowl with the bread and meat.
5. Immediately add the whisky to the bowl, cover tightly with plastic wrap and let set 4-6 hours at room temperature.
6. Strain through a cheese cloth, making sure to squeeze out the bread. Freeze for 4 hours and separate the congealed fat. Strain once more through cheese cloth and keep refrigerated in a sealed bottle. Use within three days.

You can certainly drink the washed rye neat. It’s satiny with a nice sweet saltiness, but I think it deserves a more complex frame so let’s make an obvious decision and blend that new silky spice emulsion into a Sazerac. You may notice I left out the simple syrup. I prefer to take the pastrami sazerac in the salty, buttery direction, instead of sweet. Besides, the Peychaud’s adds enough sweetness for me.

The Pastrami Sazerac

• 2 oz. pastrami sandwich washed rye whiskey
• 2 shakes Peychaud’s bitters
• Absinthe vert
• Fresh lemon peel

1. Rinse chilled rocks glass with absinthe and dump.
2. In a shaker add washed rye, bitters and ice. Stir to chill and strain into rocks glass.
3. Express a lemon peel over drink, wipe around rim of glass.
4. Garnish with the lemon peel and serve.

Cheers!

Since my first visit to the Hawthorne in Boston, finding new Julep recipes has become one of my favorite hobbies. The ultra-exclusive atmosphere and astutely ambitious cocktails at New York’s Angel’s Share didn’t make it seem like it was going to be the place to find one, at first.

Like the Old Fashioned, the Julep is an elemental technique. The classic cocktail was only minimally modified to suit the dog days of summer. Instead of aromatic bitters, muddle a cooling, aromatic herb with your simple syrup and then add your whisky and a hefty pile of ice. It’s a drink that preaches the gospel of the minimalist; one of the few where the whisky can really shine through, despite being bound to other ingredients.

Where The Hawthorne‘s Katie Emmerson switched out the classic Bourbon for a heady Islay malt, Angel’s Share‘s director, Shingo Gokan, in true form, opted to change everything. Instead of Bourbon, he uses a Japanese whisky, Hakushu 12 yr. Where there was mint, now there is shiso. Lastly, instead of commercial white sugar, Shingo has sourced the elusive Japanese wasanbon toh for its subtle earthiness and vibrant fruit.

Like the Lagavulin Julep, the Hakushu has some peat to add to the mix, but is far more balanced. It adds more of a savory, richness at the base and less of the blast of bog water that the juggernaut Lagavulin rolls through on. 

Japanese whisky is also milder than Bourbon, making mint’s subtle, more complex cousin, Shiso, a perfect match. It’s floral and green enough to add the aromatic layer, and still cooling enough to enjoy on a hot summer day. The citrus-y side of the shiso also adds a bit of sweetness to the liquor, like a deliciously perverse whisky gimlet, though maybe not quite that sweet until you add the wasanbon.

Wasanbon sugar rounds out the mix with a subtle molasses flavor and light fruity notes not found in commercial sugars. It is manufactured in Japan from a rare sugar cane plant that is much thinner than the cane we think of in the US. It’s all made by hand so the care and skill that goes into making it, makes it a rare treat, even for those living closer to the source. Typically, wasanbon is pressed into molds and shaped as candies, or used in wagashi, the Japanese equivalent of petit fours. People use it in coffee or cakes, too, but try not to cover the flavor up with too many other ingredients.

Gokan came up with the idea of making a Japanese-style Julep while visiting the Hakushu distillery in Japan. He was also kind enough to share his recipe with us, here. The one hold up to making this at home, however, will be finding wasanbon sugar, as it is extremely rare. Despite the language barrier, I managed to find a big bag of it on Rakuten but immediately after buying it they ran out of stock. If you’re lucky you can buy a smaller bag, but if that stock runs out next, then you may have to find another way to source it. Good luck! It’s amazing stuff.

Shingo Gokan’s Shiso Julep

1. First make a simple syrup with two bar spoons worth of wasanbon sugar and 60mL of mineral water.
2. In a Julep Cup, add a small amount of shiso leaf and the syrup. Muddle lightly.
3. Add 60mL Hakushu 12yr and fill cup with crushed ice. Carefully stir until chilled and the outside of the cup is frosty. 
4. Garnish with aromatic shiso leaf and serve.

Thank you to Angel’s Share for the recipe. If you haven’t been yet, you should get there soon and check it out! The cocktails are so delicious that the first time we went, I had a mid-life crisis as we were leaving. This isn’t just a must-try cocktail, this is a must-see speakeasy.

Village Yokocho
8 Stuyvesant St
New York, NY 10003

Ever the proud Yankee, I’ve been slowly whittling down my New England clam chowder recipe for a long time… and I don’t mean that thick, floured goop you think I’m talking about. I didn’t say clam gravy. I said clam chowder, dammit. True chowder. The stuff the old school, New England settlers made. It’s been one of my absolute favorite things to make since well before I realized that it paired so well with single malt Scotch.

This dish plays well with any single malts that have an oceanic quality to them, so Talisker, Highland Park, Jura, or any Islay you can think of, all drink very nicely with it. Each has their own nuance to bring to the table, but the iodine from the peat and the phenolic brine from the clams blend into one another seamlessly. The unctuous creaminess of a well made chowder can stand up to the high proof, and the smokiness of whisky practically begs for a strong mouthful of ocean. This is a downright sacramental experience.

Chowder’s is a tragic story, though. Somewhere along the way, chefs trained in the French style stopped making chowder and started making bechamel garnished with chowder constituents, loosened up with canned clam juice. The texture and flavor was similar enough that not many people could tell the difference (or cared), and soon, even people from New England began to associate their historic culinary contribution with this new, pasty impostor. Real New England clam chowder does not use flour to thicken it. It relies on potatoes for thickness and milk or cream for it’s velvety smooth mouthfeel.

Making it from scratch is a lot of work, but other than the time you commit, the process is very easy. The most important step is making your clam stock. Toss that bottled crap out the window; it’s for lazy dullards. Coaxing nectar from clams using gentle steam is about as simple as it gets and bottled clam juice will not give you the same results.

Traditional clam stock is made by steaming clams in a small amount of water. I prefer to use a little corn stock. Real clam stock is also very salty, so corn sugars add some complimentary sweetness and help to mitigate the saltiness of these ocean dwelling bivalves.

Corn stock is one of those secret ingredients that will give your recipes an extra boost which your guests won’t quite be able to put their finger on. Each summer I vacuum seal and save all my corn cobs in the freezer for use throughout the year, but even crappy winter, supermarket corn has a cob that can make a decent stock. For convenience you can even make a large batch of corn stock and freeze it for later use.

New England Clam Chowder (makes about four servings)

• 4 corn cobs
• 3 pints filtered water
• 4 lbs 4 oz littleneck clams
• 4 oz diced salt pork
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 small (5 oz) onion, diced
• 1 large (2.5 oz) shallot, diced
• 1 long stalk (2 oz) celery, washed and diced
• 2 large cloves garlic, minced
• 2 lbs red potatoes, peeled and diced
• 2 bay leaves
• 3-4 sprigs thyme, stripped and stems discarded
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

1. Cover corn cobs with 3 pints filtered water. Bring to boil, reduce to medium and slow-boil until reduced to 1 cup, about an hour. Strain and pour hot stock into a large pot with a vegetable steamer basket. Cover so the stock boils more easily in step three. Discard cobs and solids.
2. As corn stock boils, brush clams well under cool water. Discard any that won’t close when you tap them. Gently tap two clams together to check for cracked shells and add all solid ones to the steamer basket in your pot. Discard cracked clams.
3. Cover pot and steam over high until clams open. As they open, carefully remove them from the pot with tongs so they don’t overcook, and place them in an uncovered bowl to cool. After five minutes of active boiling they should start opening, but it may take up to fifteen minutes. Throw away any that don’t open after that.
4. Remove pot from heat, strain the clam stock in the bottom through a cheese cloth to remove shell fragments and set broth aside.
5. Once clams are cool enough to handle, scrape them out of their shell and place them in a bowl making sure to capture all the liquids that accumulate. Strain liquids through cheese cloth and add to clam stock. Discard shells and rinse out pot.
6. Roughly chop clam meat, paying close attention for errant shell fragments that may be stuck to the clams. Cover clams in bowl with plastic wrap, reserving any juices and set in fridge until ready to use.
7. Render salt pork in the pot over medium heat until crispy. Discard the excess fat.
8. Add butter, onion, shallot, celery, bay leaves, and thyme to pot. Saute until soft and onions are translucent, about 10 minutes, working up the brown bits from the bottom as the vegetables release their moisture. Remove from heat and set aside
9. In a separate pot, add potatoes and cover with reserved clam stock. If it doesn’t quite cover it, add some filtered water or whole milk to top it off. Bring to a gentle boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10-15 minutes, until potatoes are soft.
10. Ladle out half of the potatoes into the onion mix, leaving all the liquid in the pot with the rest of the potatoes. Puree potatoes and stock with a stick blender until thick, creamy and all lumps are gone. This is where all the chowders thickening power comes from; over worked potatoes.
11. Add thickened stock, cream, a few grinds of black pepper and chopped clam meat to the pot with the onion mix. Gently turn all ingredients together. If the mix is too thick or to salty just add some extra cream or whole milk to taste. Heat over low, stirring frequently for five minutes to meld flavors.
12. Serve immediately, or cool pot in an ice bath and leave covered in the refrigerator for flavors to meld more overnight. Heat gently just until warmed through, garnish with chives or crackers, and serve with an oceanic single malt.

If you’re feeling adventurous, try garnishing your bowl with a few drops (I said drops, not a splash) of single malt. While this is a great pairing with any oceanic flavored whisky, even without the whisky garnish or pairing, this is one delicious chowder.

Cheers!