A liberal dose of liquor

With all the stressors that have come to define the holiday season, what better time to have your drink and eat it too?

Sure, a cake spiked with spirits is festive. But experienced home cooks say a dish doused liberally with hard liquor – think daiquiri guacamole, salmon dip whisked with gin and chicken wings marinated in dark rum – can also be a tasty antidote to clearance-crazed crowds, awkward family get-togethers and nasty weather. It's oh-so-much easier to endure a mother-in-law's annual gripes with a dollop of tequila salsa on one's hors d'oeuvres plate.

Not that drunken food should be considered a secret nip: The alcohol is often front and center in the latest recipes calling for ingredients measured in jiggers and fifths. As the lines between food and drink have become increasingly blurred over recent years, with a new crop of mixologists populating their tumblers with farm-fresh fruit and organic vegetables, chefs have made room in their pantries for spirits. Rather than let the alcohol just "burn off," they've devised ways to feature liquor's distinctive flavors in their concoctions.

"You should be able to feel it, for sure," says Jodi Rhoden, owner of Short Street Cakes. "You want to get a little warmed by spirits at Christmastime."

While the current cocktail fashion has probably helped raise the stature of spirited food, cakes liberally doused with booze have a long history. Rhoden, who invented a bourbon-soaked Mardi Gras Queen cake to celebrate the opening of her retail space in West Asheville, likes baking with liquor partly because it harkens back to a time when wedding cakes were saturated with alcohol.

"People used liquors to preserve cakes," she explains. "The tradition of eating wedding cake a year later was because the wedding cake used to be a fruitcake."

Unlike the tasteless rocks that emerge from most newlyweds' freezers on their first anniversaries, fruitcakes protected by liquor probably improved with age.

Alcohol is well-suited to dense cakes, such as pound cakes and sponge cakes. Perhaps the most notable example of the latter is the Lane cake, the frosted Alabama specialty made with – according to the original recipe – "one wine-glass of good whiskey and brandy."

Rhoden admits many bakers forgo the good stuff when making cakes. "My mom always taught me to use the cheap stuff," she laughs.

While there's nothing wrong with baking with cheap liquor – "You're not going to have a bad hangover from fruitcake made with Old Crow," Rhoden says, well-made spirits add a special celebratory touch. That's why Rhoden broke out the Maker's Mark for her first Mardi Gras Queen cake. A great fan of bourbon, Rhoden's kept the cake on the menu at her shop, which also offers non-alcoholic mulled cider for teetotaling holiday celebrants.
Pure corn whiskey's the operative spirit in Tomato Jam Café's newest product: Drunken apple butter. The butter's made with apples that have macerated in corn whiskey for two weeks.

"We cook them down with red hot cinnamon candies and brown sugar," says the café's co-owner Rebecca Daun-Widner. "It smells good, and I think we're getting a little high when we're cooking."

Daun-Widner says the alcohol also adds a "rich dimension of flavor."

According to Daun-Widner, the flavor's unmistakable – and so's the smell.

"People have been walking in all day and saying, 'What am I smelling?,'" says Daum-Widner, whose new corn-whiskey operation is 100 percent legit. "It's been fun."

Daum-Widner and her partner Charlie like to pair the butter with biscuits and pork loin.

"It's very different than working with brandy," Daum-Widner says. "You definitely taste the alcohol."

And, at holiday time, most folks will drink to that.

Subhead: Tomato Jam Cafe's Easy Braised Pork Chops with Drunken Red Hot Apple Butter

Ingredients
* 4 thick-cut pork chops
* 1 pint Drunken Red Hot Apple Butter
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 1 large onion, sliced lengthwise into half-moons
* 3 cups chicken broth or unsweetened apple cider
* Salt & pepper to taste

Directions
1. Season pork chops with salt & pepper to taste. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium high heat. Add chops and brown in oil for about 4 to 6 minutes each side. Remove from skillet and set aside.
2. In the same skillet, saute the onion until caramelized. Add Drunken Red Hot Apple Butter and heat through, stirring, until liquid is bubbling. Add liquid to thin sauce. Return chops to skillet, reduce heat to very low and let simmer until meat is very tender and sauce thickens (about 1 1/2 to 2 hours), adding liquid as needed. Adjust salt and pepper to taste before service.

SHARE

Thanks for reading through to the end…

We share your inclination to get the whole story. For the past 25 years, Xpress has been committed to in-depth, balanced reporting about the greater Asheville area. We want everyone to have access to our stories. That’s a big part of why we've never charged for the paper or put up a paywall.

We’re pretty sure that you know journalism faces big challenges these days. Advertising no longer pays the whole cost. Media outlets around the country are asking their readers to chip in. Xpress needs help, too. We hope you’ll consider signing up to be a member of Xpress. For as little as $5 a month — the cost of a craft beer or kombucha — you can help keep local journalism strong. It only takes a moment.

Before you comment

The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.

Leave a Reply

To leave a reply you may Login with your Mountain Xpress account, connect socially or enter your name and e-mail. Your e-mail address will not be published. All fields are required.