The Billingsgate from Slack Tide Fish Co. (Photo courtesy Slack Tide Fish Co.)
Salt is the cocktail maker’s Swiss Army Knife. It sculpts sweet and sour flavors into delicious expressions, burnishes bitter edges, and coaxes depth from subtle ingredients that might otherwise be overpowered. While classic salt-rimmed drinks — margaritas, palomas and salty dogs — use a heavy hand to show off how intense (and rewarding) the sweet-salty interplay can get, bar pros also use a saline solution for controlled, delicate additions to recipes. Grab one of these salt-laced delights for inspiration.
Billingsgate
This drink is a work of art. Think of the rich uncle of a Vesper martini who doesn’t like sweet things. Delicately bitter Quinquina Blanc, a French aperitif, wraps around gin and vodka to create a strong, slightly floral base and is layered with three gorgeously briny components — kombu, white soy and a recycled oyster shell — that excite the taste buds.
Peach and Lemon Verbena Margarita
This confection at the MCK bar is an all-time achievement: Peaches and lemon verbena bring out the herbal notes in tequila, so instead of the classic sweet-tart bang on the tongue, there’s a velvety evolution of fleshy sugar and greenery hiding beneath a cloud of sea salt espuma (foam).
Plum Dickens
How did they do this? This much booze shouldn’t sip nearly as easily as it does, given its almost solid-liquor soul. Bourbon, scotch, Campari and Czech herbal liqueur Becherovka are brilliantly enlivened by salted plum and rounded out by lemon and bitters for a full, rich finish.
