0.0 % Pastis Sour - Nashi pear and chorizo
Recipe, Food-Styling, Photo: Oliver Schwarzwald
Strong drink and ambivalence
When I first got into mocktails and other non-alcoholic mixed drinks, my taste repertoire was not ready for strong punches. The drinks had to be neither too sour nor too bitter or spicy, much like cooking. Specialities occupied the lower places on my culinary to-do list. Who doesn't know that. It took me a while before I dared to try offal, oysters and the like. Not only the latter has been ticked off, by now I even accept edgy drinks sometimes. Bitter, spicy and sour work better and better for me, especially in pairings. I think this is a normal development. If you like strong aniseed notes in general, but the taste spectrum should remain suitable for the majority, you will certainly find what you are looking for in an older post.
Red Violet with Chocolate Orange Cake
Alcohol-free Pastis & Cherries
Alcohol-free Pastis Sage Spritz & Saltimbocca Shrimp
Pastis Rouge X Mauresque a Top Mash Up
Happy Hour on the Death Star
I am and always will be a Pastis fan. Then with spirit, now zero. I always liked aniseed and herbs, ok sure I liked the effect of the alcohol back then. But the tangy, sharp taste of alcohol was always too strong for me, like brandies or grappa after a meal. I drank everything out of tradition, etiquette or subtle peer pressure, and of course for the intoxication. But let's face it, it tastes like cleaner. Maybe that's why non-alcoholic spirits like pastis or rum don't trigger me. The reasons for this are unclear. I can't put my finger on it. And it's certainly not universal. Sometimes it is a strange experience to rediscover familiar tastes, now without alcohol.
And I have a very ambivalent relationship to non-alcoholic spirits from big alcohol brands in particular. Although there are individual, even very good products of the big players as non-alcoholic variants, there is always a part of their aggressive marketing for alcohol behind it. Their advertising measures obviously had an effect on me early on. It's complicated, and feels about as strange as a happy hour on the Death Star. Pastis alternatives are available, for example, from Ricard and the Blancart from Bardinet presented here, both 100% alcohol traditional houses. How to deal with them? It's important for me to keep an open mind and to set new defaults by trying new things, because I'm absolutely convinced by the idea of alcohol-free drinks for adults. There has to be more than soda and non-alcoholic beer and sparkling wine. There must be something special for special occasions that has nothing to do with alcohol. I am all the more pleased about all the new producers who have a complete sober DNA. For me, they have a decisive competitive advantage, but unfortunately not yet the market power. Fortunately, we are only at the very beginning, it remains complicated but also very exciting.
No trigger for me
Alcohol-free alternatives don't trigger me, they don't trigger anything negative. Maybe it's the clear decision against alcohol, and the absolute lack of desire with which I now approach intoxication. Maybe it's the experience, after more than a year sober, of how good clarity does me. How much more resilient my nervous system is since I stopped drinking. And how pointless the glorification around drinking is since I can look at it soberly and with distance. I can only speak for myself here. Everyone has their own personal experience and view of things. If you feel a trigger moment coming on, please don't try the following drink.
Recipe, Food-Styling, Photo: Oliver Schwarzwald
Strong and sour.
As mentioned at the beginning, this drink is edgy. The spiciness of the non-alcoholic pastis comes through undiluted. The tartly sweet sumac syrup is a light underlay for the lime, which makes the sour a sour in the first place. You have to like it or be willing to go for the spicy herbal sour punches.
As a snack, there is a nashi pear cooked with star anise, bay leaf and a little salt. This neutralises and brings the necessary fruit components. The salt prevents it from becoming too sweet. A light star anise flavour corresponds to the drink. A spicy chorizo is added as a greasy and savoury note. Basil oil, provides green freshness and the all-important splash of colour. The eye drinks and eats too!
Cheers!
All amounts are for approx. 6 - 8 snacks
Sumac syrup
Ingredients:
125 ml water
125 ml honey
3 tsp Sumac
Preparation:
Heat water, do not boil.
Completely dissolve honey in it.
Add sumac and simmer for 10min.
Remove from the heat and let it cool.
Strain through a fine sieve (or filter bag) and chill.
Basil oil
Ingredients:
50 g Basil
250 ml Oil
Preparation:
Heat the oil in a pot to approx. 100 ° C.
Add the basil to the hot oil and puree with a hand blender for about 5 minutes. The temperature should not drop below 80°C, otherwise no chlorophyll will dissolve and the oil will not turn green.
Pass through a straining cloth.
Allow filtered oil to rest in a container for approx. 45 minutes.
The water from the basil should have settled by now.
Carefully skim off the water.
Pour the oil into a clean container and refrigerate.
Nashi compote with chorizo
Ingredients:
1 - 2 Chorizo
1 Nashi pear
1 Star anise
3 Juniper berries
1 Bay leaf
100 ml water
25 gDemerara sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 lime juiced
Preparation:
Slowly fry the chorizo in a grill pan.
Wash the pear, remove the core and cut into small pieces.
Boil sugar, spices, salt with water and pear for 20 -25 min in a covered pot until the pear is soft.
HälfPuree half of the compote.
Chill the cooked pieces and the puree.
Keep the chorizo warm and slice just before serving.
Drink:
Ingredients for 1 drink
5 CL non-alcoholic pastis
4 CL Sumach
1 egg white
Ice
Preparation:
Put some sumac on a saucer.
Moisten the rim of the glass (water or lime juice).
Press rim of glass into sumac.
Put ice cubes in the glass.
Put the ingredients in a shaker and shake "dry" (without ice).
Then add ice and shake again.
Strain the drink into the glass.
Nashi pear with puree, chorizo and basil oil can be served on a fork, in a spoon or on a plate. Decoration: Basil leaf.
