Whisky tangerine cocktail and buttered toast

This might sound a wacky pairing (OK, it is) but it’s sooo good I had to pass it on. One for Christmas morning, even.

It was created by the great Nick Strangeway at a fascinating event I went to called The Art of Blending which brought together a chocolatier (Chantal Coady of Rococo), a tea blender (Henrietta Lovell of Rare Tea Company) a perfumer (Angela Flanders), a mixologist (Nick) and Dr Jim Beveridge, the master blender of Johnnie Walker which sponsored the evening.

The idea obviously was to show that blended whisky is not an inferior product by showing how other preparations and high-end products benefit from being blended, cocktails being one.

Nick made this extraordinarily delicious cocktail from a bitter orange syrup - essentially an unset marmalade with peated malted barley added, shaken with Johnnie Walker Blue then handed round some buttered toast for us to nibble with it. Amazing - the cocktail tasted like liquid marmalade.

Obviously this wouldn’t be that easy to replicate at home but there are plenty of recipes for breakfast martinis which should work equally well particularly if you can make them with homemade or, even better, a freshly made marmalade.

Hawksmoor’s* version is below:

1 tsp bitter orange marmalade

50ml good gin such as Beefeater

5ml Campari

15ml lemon juice

a dash of orange bitters

a twist of orange peel

Place a heaped barspoon (or teaspoon) of marmalade in a shaker. Add the gin and stir, pressing the marmalade against the side of the shaker to loosen it up. Add the other ingredients, fill up the shaker with ice cubes and shake hard to break down and dissolve the marmalade. Strain into a martini glass and serve with a twist of orange peel.

The other option is to use Chase’s marmalade-flavoured vodka.

Breakfasts will never be the same again . . .

* recipe from Hawksmoor at Home, published by Preface Publishing at £25

Rabanadas and tawny port

Having been in Portugal for three days this week it’s no surprise that my top match this week is a port but the food pairing is surprisingly simple and delicious.

It’s a kind of deep-fried spiced, pain perdu-like eggy bread called Rabanadas which is served around Christmas, dusted with cinnamon sugar which turns into a gorgeous gooey syrup. It’s this cinnamony element that makes it particularly delicious with tawny port - in this case a sweet, nutty Taylor’s 20 year old tawny but I'm sure it would work equally well with a 10 y.o.

I like the fact that it was on the menu at the very posh Michelin-starred restaurant at The Yeatman wine hotel in Porto where I was staying for their 2 day Christmas Wine Experience - a two day wine fair where you could taste a wide range of Portuguese wines you wouldn't normally come across. More about this soon.

There’s a delicious-sounding recipe for the Rabanadas on Foodepedia here. I’ll definitely be trying them out with the port this Christmas.

Langoustines and caviar with Faiveley’s Puligny Montrachet 1er cru La Garenne 2009

A celestial combination I enjoyed at a burgundy dinner at the Grand Hotel de Bordeaux last week. Burgundy in Bordeaux? Yup - I guess they want to ring the changes from time to time but it does seem heretical.

It also seems on the face of it an unlikely combination particularly with red burgundy but the way the chef Pascal Nibaudeau got round it was to incorporate caviar (Caviar d’Aquitaine from Sturia) into other burgundy-friendly dishes.

This dish, for instance, owed as much to the accompanying sweet, fat langoustine, risotto and creamy, delicately saffron-flavoured sauce as it did to the caviar although the caviar certainly accented the beautifully pure, crisp Puligny perfectly.

Incidentally I found this interesting description of the background to the wine from Haynes, Hanson Clark who sell it for £48.90 a bottle.

"This is only the second vintage since this vineyard was acquired by the Domaine. It covers less than one fifth of a hectare, producing just five barrels in 2009, the wine being vinified and aged in one third new barrels. La Garenne's situation high on the hillside has allowed admirable acidity and minerality to be retained, giving the wine outstanding balance and potential (for drinking 2012-2020+)".

A classic combination in the great tradition of French haute cuisine but none the worse for that.

Chocolate brownies, vanilla ice-cream and PX sherry

This was by far the most popular pairing at a chocolate and wine tasting I did for the West of England Wine and Spirit Association in Bristol on Friday night. We didn’t actually have the ice cream but I think it would have made it even better.

The brownies, which were particularly squidgy and chocolatey, were made by local brownie queen, caterer and supper club host Elly Curshen of Pear Cafe and apparently contained half a kilo of dark chocolate. They obviously overwhelmed our lighter wines but even proved a bit of a handful for our sweet reds including an LBV port. However they were sensationally good with an intensely sweet, deeply raisiny, Pedro Ximenez sherry from Sanchez Romate Hnos (£22.50 in a very handsome bottle from Great Western Wine) - the best PX I’ve tasted.

You might think it’s gilding the lily but I can think of a way of making the combination even yummier: serving the brownies just warm with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. PX is often recommended poured over vanilla ice-cream so why not serve it with the brownies and a small glass alongside? An easy and indulgent dessert.

Incidentally I do hold food and drink tastings (not just wine) regularly - usually in London, Bristol or Bath but will consider going further afield. (I was recently asked to do one in Australia!) Contact me at fiona AT matchingfoodandwine DOT com or check out this page if you’d like to know more.