Up Your Cooking Game with Beer, Wine and Spirits 

Alcohol in the Kitchen

One thing that you may notice when reading my recipes is that I frequently cook and bake with alcohol—spirits, wine and beer.  I add it to my recipes because it creates a depth of flavor in food that you can’t get otherwise. 

What binds them all together:

Alcohol adds depth of flavor to everything—season with it, cook with it, bake with it, reduce with it.  It’s an easy way to make your food taste better.  A kitchen hack that takes home cooking to a higher level.  It’s a great way for new cooks—and those cooks ‘not in the know’—to maximize flavor in simple dishes.  Cooking with leftover wine and beer is also zero waste positive. 

Cooking with Beer

Rule of thumb: If I would drink a beer with the finished dish, I can use it in the recipe:

If the recipe is yeasty or heady, cook with it.

If the beer is stout or Guinness, cook and bake with it.

Beer also makes a great quick and easy marinade for beef and is the key ingredient in the quintessential grilling favorite, Beer Can Chicken.

Tip:  If you don’t drink beer, you can still cook with it.  It’s a great way to use up that IPA your friends brought to a party and left in your refrigerator.

Cooking with Wine

Rule of thumb: If the recipe calls for a volume of liquid, [water, stock, etc.] I always add wine to deepen the flavor and make it more robust

• Traditional and untraditional uses

• How to choose between red and white wine

• Leftover wine: what to do with it, and how to store it

Reduce a pan for a pan sauce

Make risotto

Make stock

Poach Chicken Breasts

Poach Salmon

Add a splash to stocks, soups and stews, vegetables, sauces, etc.

• Store leftover wine in the refrigerator corked in the original bottle, or transfer to a clean glass jar with a tight-fitting lid like a Mason jar.

Cooking with Spirits

Rule of thumb: When I want to get the maximum flavor for a small amount of liquid, I use spirits.  Spirits can also be substituted for extracts and flavorings in baking.  Flambe with spirits for a cool retro and dramatic presentation.

Adds layers of flavor:  i.e., My Whiskey Buttermilk Cake uses bourbon in the batter, in the simple syrup that is brushed on the cake when warm and the glaze that finished the cake.  The result is not a boozy cake, but a delicate vanilla cake that has more complexity and depth than it would have without the bourbon.  It also helps intensify the warm spices of cardamom and nutmeg.

Tip:  Buy a small “airplane bottle” instead of a more expensive bottle of spirits if it is not a spirit that you will drink as well.

Savory Spirits (and wine and beer)

Use these spirits, wine and beer when cooking, grilling and barbecuing.

Most of your favorite spirits, wine and beer will work.  However I would caution against using sweetened liqueurs for cooking savory foods with a few exceptions like barbecue sauces.

Bourbon

Rye

Scotch Whisky

Irish Whiskey

Tequila

Mezcal

Cognac

Brandy 

Gin

Vodka and flavored Vodka like Peppered Vodka

Rum

White wine

Champagne or Sparkling wine

Rose

Red wine