Turn the Last Bite of Pickled Salad Into a Smoothie
Savory cocktails have a time, but the quirky concoctions you see in magazines always seem to include three individual infusions and a hand-made garnish. If that’s not really your style, check your refrigerator – you may already have everything you need for sophisticated, savory adult drinks.
Whether you think of them as a marinade, dressing, or pickle, the highly flavored liquids left over from macerated salads are technically infusions – and they’re great for cocktails. You can use just about anything you have, but stick with options that are mostly acid, salt, and sugar, with little or no fat. (Sauerkraut pickle will work; creamy cabbage salad is not very good.) For best results, treat pickles like bitters or drinking vinegar : a small amount matters, and you will probably need a non-alcoholic ingredient to balance. With that in mind, any of these combinations would be stellar:
- Tomatoes and Vodka : Pickled tomato salad juice certainly makes sense in Bloody Mary or Michelada, but I think it has a lot of potential as a riff on a dirty martini.
- Cucumbers and Soju: Thinly sliced cucumbers drenched in seasoned rice vinegar and extra salt is a desert island salad for me, and I can’t stop thinking about mixing scraps with soju.
- Watermelon and tequila or mezcal: A good watermelon and feta salad is fresh, fruity, spicy and unusual at the same time. Leftover marinade makes for a delicious, unexpected addition to a margarita, or a great shot hunter.
- Beetroot and Gin: Wait, Come Back! Pickled beet brine has an earthy hue that goes well with herbal coniferous gin. I promise I’m not crazy: Kachka’s cookbook recommends gin and beets, and Abe Fisher of Philadelphia makes Negroni’s incredible beetroot situation .
Not ready to mix gin with pickled beet juice? I understand. Start experimenting with flavor combinations that sound good and seek inspiration from pleasant surprises along the way. Whatever you do, do not pour home-made pickled juice into the sink yet; this could be the start of your new favorite cocktail.