The Tasting Panel magazine

October 2015

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october 2015  /  the tasting panel  /  127 How do you Dine with the Duke? We want to see your pairings! Email Duke@TastingPanelMag.com with your Duke Bourbon pairing! Got a dessert that is amazing with Duke neat, or an app that's perfectly paired with a Duke cocktail? Your pairing could win you a trip to Las Vegas, where you'll compete in a John Wayne–worthy outdoor adventure/mixology session! Enter today! PHOTO: MONA SHIELD PAYNE crisps and the meat becomes buttery and fork-tender. Finally, O'Sullivan glazes the meat in a bourbon butter sauce with browned butter and brown sugar from a fat washing the bourbon itself undergoes earlier. Alongside, he adds a petite salad of honey crisp apples and shaved fennel simply dressed with a bright olive oil and lemon juice. "All those flavors seem to pair really well with the Duke Bourbon." But it's that last part that particularly inspired Zechman to craft his cocktail, simply donned The Duke. "I love the savory notes in the Duke. It has a high rye content, and you really get those spicy notes," he says. "This drink is actually more a twist on a whiskey sour—it's a little riff. For me, to indulge in my favorite playtime is to make new variations on the classics." So what is Lafranconi searching for in the winner? "Well, there are two ways to approach this Dining with the Duke project," says Lafranconi. "You can try to find certain dishes with savory herbs and spices, whether it's ginger or cinnamon, or vanilla and butterscotch or banana, that mimic a characteristic you find in the bourbon in food itself. The other way is basically to find if there are any certain ingredients found also in the cocktail when I pair." Lafranconi elaborates on his pairing philosophy by drawing an unexpected comparison: "This is definitely going to be a challenge for many bartenders: Think about these pairings like food and saké," comments Lafranconi. "A lot of sakés in Japan were developed to pair with food, especially if you're in the mountains and more salted foods and pickling are used. In bourbon, you're looking at the mash bill. Given the fact that Duke is a very bold, gutsy bourbon with a good structure, you can taste the spiciness of the grain and also the tannins from the oak. It's very good, solid bourbon." "On the nose, you definitely have almost a little bit of banana bread pudding and corn bread, but there's also some spiciness—some sweet baking spice—from the high rye content," he offers. "It's about exploring the boundar- ies and new territory with bourbon. For me, there is more focus on the structure of the whiskey itself and how the flavor profile and the food work together."

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