With a focus on provenance, ingredients and complex flavours, slow alcohol is catching on fast
Bird Group's Ankur Bhatia likes to delve into a place's unique local gastronomic traditions
Image: Madhu Kapparath
It’s early autumn in Cognac, the small French brandy town, and the surrounding countryside is bursting with the mellowness of fall. Neatly parcelled vineyards soak in the warm afternoon sun. There are fields of sunflowers and corn, and the river Charente meanders its way towards the sea.
At Le Logis, a charming villa, set in the heart of this countryside, François Thibault, a globally-reputed maître de chai (cellar master), asks me, “What is that one flavour you associate with French gastronomy?” That’s a tough question to answer for a food writer because we are always thinking of so many flavours at one time. “Er, escargot,” I reply, leaving Thibault a bit disappointed.
Almost anyone else would have answered differently, and said “bread”. You can’t be in France and not smell freshly baked bread everywhere: Delicious croissants, pans au chocolat impossible to get anywhere else in the world of the same quality, buttery brioche and baguette, crisp on the outside, soft inside, light and airy.
Thibault is not making idle small talk. He wants to draw my attention to bread not just because it is gourmet art in France, but also because the cellar master has put its flavours into a spirit. Last year Thibault got together with acclaimed chef Alain Ducasse to create the world’s first gastronomic vodka for Grey Goose, simply called ‘Grey Goose Interpreted by Ducasse’. Taking blé panifiable supérieur, a finely-ground flour made from soft winter wheat (the only grade of flour permitted in bread-making in France) from the historical Picardie region, Thibault toasted the wheat in three ways. This was ostensibly inspired by Ducasse himself, who cooked wheat in a pan for Thibault so that the duo could study the various notes and aromas arising from it.
The gastronomic vodka has three distinct notes—of brioche, flavours of green chestnuts and almonds, and rich chocolate and coffee that come from caramelising wheat. It is a spirit that you cannot down in a single shot. (Most vodka in the past was made as a rough spirit that necessitated downing it as shots at freezing temperature. Fine vodka is the antithesis of this.) Instead, you must savour it slowly at room temperature, appreciating the complexities as new notes appear at various stages of drinking it. Though the vodka is available in all Ducasse restaurants and certain other global markets, in India it is only available at airport duty-free stores (around $100 for 750 ml bottle). “But it may get into your bars soon,” Thibault says.
More evolved consumers are looking to savour these experiences in a glass rather than get sloshed. Wine and whisky, as well as spirits such as cognac and gin, have always placed a premium on terroir (a region’s air, water and ingredients that lend character to the drink) and botanicals (herbs, fruit and farm ingredients). They have already been pegged in the “slow” category—at least at their highest end of retail. Now, it is the turn of other spirits.
Trendy bars in London, Singapore and New York are experimenting with liquors like mead (made from honey, thought of as a medieval drink) port and vermouth, as well as Italian and French liqueurs that were earlier thought of as something from an old, bygone era. This comes especially at a time when more high-end, millennial consumers are looking for sophisticated flavours but lower alcohol content in their drinks.
While this may not be a trend in India as yet, bar owners are beginning to take cognisance of this shift towards slow alcohol. Vaibhav Singh, co-owner of Perch, Delhi, foresees vermouth (fortified and aromatised wine) as an emerging trend even in bars in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru. “Internationally, vermouth is already big, and though in India we are restricted by policy and are not able to import much, it will catch up here too. I foresee many bars making in-house versions of these aromatised wines,” says Singh. (The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India or FSSAI mandates that the entire formula must be printed on the label; however for complex herbal liqueurs, old recipes are closely guarded secrets, which is not possible.) Wormwood plant, whose extract is used to flavour vermouth (as also absinthe) is not found in India, and legalities around its use in food and drink are unclear. But wines can easily be fortified and aromatised with other herbs, bartenders say.
(This story appears in the 28 December, 2018 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)