The Tasting Panel magazine

November 2017

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40  /  the tasting panel  /  november 2017 COCKTAIL CONSERVATION S quash pulp. Olive pits. Eggshells. Spent coffee grounds. You name it, Austin Carson has found a way to work it into a cocktail in the name of reducing waste—with taste. As the Bar Ambassador for Denver-based restaurant group Bonanno Concepts and GM at its flagship restaurant Mizuna, Carson had already developed a reputation for mixological experimentation with outrageous ingredients like distilled peanut butter and parmesan soda when the so-called trash-to-table move- ment began to open his eyes to, in his words, "the responsibility of production." Inspired by sustainability advocates like chef Dan Barber and barman Ryan Chetiyawardana, Carson has emphasized ethics in his adventurous aesthetics ever since. In an effort to expose his patrons to the waste-reduction movement, he reclaims and recycles everything from leftover honeycomb to aquafaba, or chickpea liquid—which he says "makes better foam than egg white, in my opinion." Take the Wasted Old Fashioned, which Carson demonstrated during a seminar titled "Use and Reuse: How to Minimize Waste with Cocktails" at Denver's inaugural Slow Food Nations conference in July. Reserving every avail- able scrap from Mizuna Sous Chef Brandon Tucker's corn bisque with avocado cream and Executive Chef Ty Leon's fruit pies, he started with rye whiskey infused with raw corn kernels—"I like the vegetal quality," Carson explained—and washed with extracted avocado oil. He then added a simple syrup flavored with corn cobs and peach discards, including the pit; a splash of avocado-skin vinegar; and bitters containing green apple peels, as well as a dash of Angostura. Finally, he used avo- cado pits he'd smoked over corn silk and frozen as a substitute for ice cubes (water waste is of particular concern to sustainably- minded bartenders). The result was a fascinating drink—smooth as could be, yet tinged with tart and savory notes. Another exemplary example comes in the form of Carson's Strawberry Margarita, which features not only syrup made from puréed berries but mezcal infused with their otherwise- unused leafy tops ("It's amazing how much herbaceous flavor they pull," he says). Carson also recently combined some leftover lemon and lime juice with cava that had gone flat, brought it to a boil with an equal amount of sugar, and voilà—he had a sort of shrub that "was just deli- cious," he says. "We mixed it with peach-infused Underberg." While you can try all of the above at home, Carson has one more easy idea to get you started: spritzes to stretch your citrus. Simply remove the pith from lemon and/or lime peels and steep them, refrigerated, in an overproof, netural-grain spirit for three days to make a shelf- stable tincture you can spray over cocktails in lieu of twists. Ultimately, he says the possibili- ties for minimizing waste while maximizing taste are limitless: "You just have to change the way you look at things." AUSTIN CARSON OF DENVER'S MIZUNA SPECIALIZES IN REDUCING WASTE IN COCKTAILS by Ruth Tobias / photos by Anna Mulé Austin Carson pours Wasted Old Fashioned cocktails, made with avocado, corn, peach, and green apple scraps. Use It or Lose It A blue-green algae– infused Gin and Tonic paired with "popped corned beef" (popcorn in butter flavored with leftover corned-beef pastrami). Barman Austin Carson of Mizuna in Denver pours blue-green algae–infused Gin and Tonics alongside Sous Chef Brandon Tucker at a Slow Food Nations seminar on sustainable mixology.

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