The Grapevine

What They’re Reading – Bon Appetit, July 2014

July 3rd, 2014

This month’s issue of Bon Appetit promises 55 “grill-tastic” recipes, a great burger makeover, the fastest salsa recipe ever and how to make the coolest cocktails. First, the front of the book.

[level-members]

Bon Appetit poses a question to its staffers, and prints some of the answers on their masthead page. It’s a nice way to add some reader value to a page that, for the most part, no-one but industry insiders ever looks at.This month’s question: We know you’re grilling, but what are you drinking? Answsers include the Queen’s Park Swizzle, which is Angostura, rum and mint over crushed ice. Palomas – pink grapefruit juice and tequila on the rocks with a salted rim. And “featherlight, savory reds from Germanic grapes such as Schiava from Italy’s Alto Adige and Zweigelt from Austria’s Burgenland. Fully iced they complement grilled food while still quenching.”

We’ll raise our glass to the too-often frowned up practice of icing down reds for summer. 

I’m not sure about beer cocktails, but apparently some folks are. Among the suggestions in that column are orange juice, gin and an American style lager. “Tastes like a boozey Orangina.” Or Aperol lemon juice and a Hefeweizen-style Belgian beer. We’ll skip the raspberry lambic/creme de cassis and Sriracha/Worcestershire sauce combos.

Great snacking suggestion: charred beans and peas. Works especially well when you’ve already got the grill fired up.

A few suggestions for pairing with grilled seafood: Galician wines from Spain. Albariño is fairly well known, but Godello and Mencía not as widely distributed. The last is a red that takes well to chilling, as mentioned above.

We’re much happier to indulge the frozen libations in the “Frozen Assets” article. You may find folks coming in for light rum (which they’ll whir up with berries and rum), vodka (strawberries and vodka), tequila (with watermelon and lime), gin (with pineapple), and our favorite: peach, ginger and bourbon.

[/level-members]