Raising the Bar Again - Recap

Alton stands before a large American flag. This scene hearkens back to several previous episodes during which he railed at Americans for their mistreatment of some once great American dish, before offering his advice on how to make it properly. But this episode will be different. Oh, he'll still be railing, but this time about a dish invented elsewhere and... damaged... here in America. A dish Alton intends to repair, and in so doing perhaps also restore a bit of luster to America's culinary image. And... these are not dishes so much as they are... drinks.

The flag rises into the ceiling, and behind it the Good Drinks bar stands revealed once again. Alton enters and steps behind the plank so that before him stand two glasses, once great ladies of the American bar. One is the Bloody Mary, supposedly modernized by mixologists and now a muddy mess of spices. The other is the margarita, her “agave warmth” buried beneath a mess of slush or a swirl of sickening sweetness. But all is not lost: with a dash of technique, some sound science and a bit of historical perspective, Alton proposes to repair the damage and restore these ladies to their former greatness, creating some quaffable... Good Eats!

Alton begins with the Bloody Mary, an exercise that takes him to 1920s Paris, and Harry's New York Bar, home to many American expatriates (some of them famous) and jazz age refugees from Fitzgerald to Gershwin (who supposedly wrote much of “An American in Paris” there). But the real star here was a bartender named... Pete, in some versions the creator of the drink. “Pete” worked at Harry's in 1921 and was friends with several Russian families who had fled the Bolsheviks in 1917. One such family, the Smirnoffs, had supplied “little water” – vodka – to the Czar himself. Pete's association with them led him to experiment with the clear spirit. It's not certain when Pete developed what would become a famous cocktail, but Alton likes to speculate that perhaps a certain reporter, nursing a hangover and having fought with his wife, shuffled into the bar one morning. At that time tomato juice was increasing in popularity as a morning pickup, especially for those suffering from the baneful effects of overindulgence the previous evening. That reporter, Hemingway, was no exception, and so perhaps Pete slipped him just a little “hair of the dog” mixed with his tomato juice. To round the beverage off, Pete reached for salty and spicy – Worcestershire sauce and Tabasco sauce, both already popular in the bar. Maybe that is how the drink was born. However it was born, it became very popular, very quickly. Queen Mary I of England might have inspired the name, or she might not have. We may never know; different sources offer different opinions.

Back in his kitchen Alton teaches that vodka, like other spirits, begins as a mash fermented by yeast. The original source of the mash matters little (it could be grains or fruits or pretty much anything that contains sugar or starch). Fermentation of this mash by the yeast yields a raw spirit sometimes called “beer” which is distilled, rarely less than twice and sometimes as many as four times, to concentrate the alcohol and remove impurities. Some those impurities remain even after every distillation, so the manufacture continues with a filtration step, typically through activated charcoal. (Here Alton reveals a rumor that one might turn subpar hooch into a better quality beverage by sending it on a few trips through a common household water filtration pitcher, but adds that he cannot confirm whether this works.) Finally, the distiller finishes by adding water to dilute the brew to the correct concentration, resulting in a mix that meets the legal definition of vodka: colorless, odorless and tasteless. So, what's the difference between the really good vodka and the merely acceptable sort? Not much, according to Alton. Perhaps the expensive stuff comes in a fancy bottle. Alton chooses a $25 bottle of vodka for his drink.

Back in 1920 there was only canned tomato juice (the only fresh tomatoes sat at the bar), so that's what Pete put in the first Bloody Mary cocktails. These days modern American mega-marts have a constant supply of tomatoes, so Alton proposes to “can the can.” He chooses fresh tomatoes: cherry tomatoes because they have a lot of juice and relatively little inner structure, and heirloom tomatoes for their rich flavor.

Tomatoes are berries that contain water soluble and alcohol soluble flavors. Vodka contains water and alcohol, making it an ideal solvent for extracting these flavors. But such dissolution takes time – far longer than it takes to mix a drink. Therefore, Alton plans ahead: he uses the heirloom tomatoes to make tomato vodka. To do this he cuts several into pieces and submerges them in vodka for about a week, stirring at least once daily. He strains the result and discards the solids. This form of vodka is delicious by itself or with a few drops of hot sauce – but it is not a Bloody Mary yet.

To make the base for his beverage, Alton puts cherry tomatoes into a blender with hot sauce, freshly squeezed lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce. Worcestershire sauce brings salt and glutamates, both of which tomatoes need to highlight their flavors. The final ingredient is kosher salt. Alton blends all that at high speed for a few minutes to create a delicious tomato juice that will keep in the refrigerator for as long as a month. He makes ice cubes from this to chill his cocktail. A few of these “tomato cubes” go into a Collins glass (selected for its narrow diameter), and over that he pours first his tomato vodka and then his tomato juice. And garnishes? Alton doesn't see the need for them at all. When he finishes his drink, he even has delicious tomato ice to nibble!

Interestingly, those who study such matters credit Harry's bar with creating the Side Car nearly a decade later; this drink is certainly a top example of the citrus family of beverages known as sours – a class of drinks related to Alton's second subject: the Margarita.

Alton's helpers dress the bar in Mexican fashion: pepper shaped miniature lights, Mexican flags, wall decorations and of course a sombrero for Alton himself, so that he can discuss the Margarita and its most important ingredient, tequila.

Both the Bloody Mary and the margarita are fruit based beverages, but there all similarity ends. In the Bloody Mary, vodka is more a silent partner to the “crimson nightshade.” But in a margarita, everything should serve the tequila. While vodka can be made from nearly any carbohydrate source, the composition of tequila is well-regulated. There's a lot Alton could say about this spirit, but he is pressed for time so he limits himself to four important points.

First, tequila is made from the blue agave plant, which is not a cactus (but it is a desert succulent). When the plants are old enough, growers dig them up and peel away the leaves to get the heart, called the piña for its resemblance to a pineapple. Second, a spirit can legally be called tequila only if made in certain places, chiefly the Mexican state of Jalisco (a few border areas of surrounding states Guanajuato, Michoacán, Nayarit, and Tamaulipas also qualify). In this regard the beverage is like true Champagne and the Videlia onion. Agave based spirits made outside these areas are called mezcal. Third, there are two sorts of tequila: pure agave, and mixtos, which must contain a minimum 51% agave spirits, the balance being other sugars. The pure stuff costs a little more, of course. Finally, within the pure tequila category there exist four basic classifications: blanco (white) tequila (also be called silver) is not aged and is crystal clear like vodka. The flavor is pure agave: floral, spicy and a little bit fruity. Reposado (rested) is a lightly tinted tequila aged in oak for at least two months but not more than 11 months and 30 days. Añejo (aged) tequila spends at least a year but not more than three in the barrels; it is a deeper golden color similar to that of a pilsner beer. Finally, extra añejo (extra aged) tequila spends more than three years in wood and takes on a rich golden color like that of other aged brown liquors. This tequila is expensive, but has rich and complex flavors better suited to sipping than mixing. Wood aging has the same effect on tequila as it has on other spirits, muting the harshness of the alcohol and adding woody and smoky notes like those of Scotch whiskey and bourbon. For mixing, Alton keeps silver type tequilas handy.

Like the Bloody Mary, there are various stories about the creation of the margarita. Alton's take suggests that a Mexican bartender, asked in the 1930s to produce a pair of side cars, discovered that he lacked the key ingredients for the popular beverage. Eying his perhaps tipsy patrons, he may have decided they'd never notice a few substitutions, so he swapped tequila for the brandy and lime juice for the orange liquor. The customers drank up, never realizing they were consuming the first margaritas. Hey, it could have happened that way!

To build his margarita Alton collects some hardware: a cocktail shaker (Alton prefers the Boston style), a small liquid measure, a citrus reamer, a muddler, a cocktail strainer, a twelve ounce martini or cocktail glass, and two saucers: one with kosher salt and the other with just a bit of tequila.

Alton starts by dipping the rim of the glass into the tequila and then counting to ten before wiggling it in the salt and tapping off the excess. The ten-count allows much of the liquid to evaporate, leaving a slightly sticky residue well-suited to collecting a rim of salt.

Next comes the citrus. Alton halves and quarters limes, and quarters part of an orange. He also makes a thin slice of lime from one of the halves. With the citrus reamer he juices the lime halves into his cocktail mixer, then adds the lime and orange quarters. He finishes with some agave nectar, a syrup made from the agave plant's piña. This syrup, largely fructose, lends itself well to muddling and also dissolves nicely in cold liquids, making it a fine choice for cocktails.

After two full minutes of muddling, Alton strains the resulting liquid and adds tequila to it, then pours it over ice and shakes it well for a full thirty seconds. The result, a proper margarita!

Luckily, Americans possess the ingenuity, savvy, materials and skills to undo the ethno-culinary havoc they have wrought. Well, at least in this case they do, and the result is certainly Good Eats!

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