Seasoned with Love

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                                     Seasoned with Love

Wait--- does she mean salt inside of the drink?

Yes, gone are the days of salt only being on a rim of a margarita. Nowadays bartenders are adding salt directly in to their drinks and the goal is not because they want the drink to be SALTY. When I first started bartending (20-ish years ago), the only drink that included salt was a margarita and we didn’t care much about the type of salt, or even what the rim looked like. Often it was visually messy, with salt all over the rim and half way down the inside and outside of the glass. Thankfully we in the craft cocktail business have stopped this practice and because we think more culinarily, we now know that the addition of a touch of salt helps to balance most every cocktail. For years I have said that bitters are the “salt and pepper” in a drink, but the more I use saline I think maybe bitters is just the pepper!

I teach basic mixology skills to bartenders as well as novices and I always use the example of making soup. Imagine you are making a chicken soup: you use chicken, chicken bones, onions, carrots, celery, garlic and pepper. You also add fresh herbs like thyme and rosemary to enhance the flavors but you omit salt. Unfortunately you will end up with a very bland pot of soup. However, once you add salt, all of those flavors start to come out, and your soup becomes very balanced. This is not to say that you should over salt, and that is why many recipes say “add salt to taste”. The same logic goes into making a balanced drink. The science behind salinity in cocktails goes back to the 5 basic tastes that your tongue is responsible for: sweet, sour, salt, bitter and umami. Food scientists know that the addition of salt enhances the flavors of food, so why not cocktails?

So how do you do it? Some bartenders add a pinch of dry salt directly and others make a “saline solution” to drip in to their drinks. I am in the camp of using the liquid version, as I believe that it mixes much better. I do a 10-1 solution (10 water, 1 salt) and I prefer to use Maldon salt because it dissolves best. The amount of saline solution I am using is literally 2-4 drops per cocktail, because the goal here is to enhance flavors, NOT to make the drink SATLY. I highly encourage readers to try this if you are not already using saline and see what it can do to a drink. A classic rum daiquiri is a great option, make it the way you typically do (my proportions are listed below) and taste it first without saline. Then add 3-4 drops of your solution and see what happens. The lime is more pronounced and depending on your palate, the depth of the rum may even be more apparent. The use of saline does not only have to be in line with citrus cocktails however-- I have a new rum drink on my menu and when we first developed it we tasted it without missing something. When we added a few drops of saline, it felt like we could taste each layer and spirit and the drink seemed much more complex.

          Daiquiri

  • 2 oz. White Rum
  • 1 oz. Fresh Lime Juice
  • .75 oz. Simple Syrup
  • 3 drops Saline Solution

Shake well with ice, strain into a coupe or martini glass.

          Two Ships

  • 1.5 oz. Don Pancho Origenes
  • .25 oz. Smith and Cross
  • .5 oz.  Amaro Montenegro
  • .5 oz.  Giffard Banana
  • 2 dashes Angostura Bitters
  • 3 drops saline solution

Stir well with ice, strain into rocks glass over one large cube.