Beverages

As a grilled-food guy, R. B. loves red Zinfandel and Côtes du Rhone. Mixed with fresh fruit and carbonation, these barbecue-friendly reds really come to life. Sweeten with sugar if you like.

A traditional low-country boil is a whole lot easier in a kitchen than on a deck with all that huge pot, outdoor burner, and propane tank business. Usually, the corn on the cob and the new potatoes are cooked right in the boil with everything else, but in a regular kitchen stockpot, we think it’s easier to cook the vegetables separately. We like the extra depth that a little bottled smoke adds to the shrimp boil.

Pickled shrimp remind us of the time when R. B. was on his home brew jag. As usual, he was way ahead of his time. Now a slightly smarter man, R. B. relies instead on the craftsmanship of real brew artisans for his lagers, ales, stouts, and porters. Back to these delicious shrimp and why we’re distracted by beer. Pickled shrimp must relax in the refrigerator a while to soak up the flavors of the oniony marinade. As with beer fermentation and the curing of Fridge Lox (page 134), you must leave them alone and go find something else to do. Meanwhile, things are happening. Easier than making beer, pickling shrimp takes an overnight instead of three weeks. Min occasionally tosses in a chopped fresh green jalapeño (with the seeds). We cannot get enough of these.

Cinco de Mayo actually marks the 1862 Mexican victory over the French, not Mexican Independence Day, as some believe. Thanks to Madison Avenue, it’s a holiday more enthusiastically embraced north of the border than south. To celebrate this semicorporate affair, grilled Burgos de Mayo combine all our favorite Mexican flavors (including the tequila) on one bun. Top them off with Mayo de Mayo, our Cinco “special sauce.”

Brine is a salty solution that infuses moisture and flavor into pork, chicken, and turkey, especially lean cuts like breast and loin that tend toward dryness under high heat. Our basic rule of thumb is 1 cup of kosher salt per gallon of water. When we add sugar to a brine, we use half as much sugar as salt. Turkey can take a little sugar, but we tend to omit it for chicken. Make as much brine as you need to submerge the meat comfortably. The 2-cup amounts below are suitable for 2 pounds of meat. Double the recipe for up to 5 pounds of meat. For large cuts like a whole turkey or a big pork loin, mix the brine in a clean cooler, add the meat, and top with bags of ice to keep it cold. Pork especially takes to sweet-flavored brines just like it does to sweet sauces and rubs. Off-the-shelf sweet liquids like apple cider, lemonade, and sweet tea need just some salt and smoke to turn into easy brines. A plastic bag and an hour in the fridge, and you’ll never think twice about not brining again. Small cuts of meat need less brining. An hour is fine for pork chops and chicken parts, while a whole turkey can go overnight.

Long ago R. B. learned that grilling hot dogs and sausages isn’t as low-stress or as simple as it sounds. He’s still recovering from childhood campfire hot dogs that turned out more like bike inner tubes. R. B.’s current recovery program requires him to just let it all go. He tries not to be an annoying guest at casual barbecues or hover nervously near the grill when a distracted host leaves his post. Dogs on a grill need to be watched or they’ll quickly run away from you. When done right they get a light char and a bite that pops. Since game day is supposed to be about the game and the guests, get the dogs done before the national anthem. The key to dogs lasting well into the postgame commentary is the slow cooker. Before the game, grill, broil, or pan-char your sausages—brats, knacks, red hots, kielbasa, smoked turkey and chicken sausages, even those basil–sun-dried tomato–mango brands. Keep them warm in spiked hot dog “water.” Use the recipe as a guideline. A large slow cooker can easily keep 5 or 6 pounds of dogs in a hot steamy bath. Just use enough liquid to keep the dogs partially but comfortably submerged, adding more water if needed. Once heated through, the links will be ready as long as the cooker is plugged in. And if the slow cooker is tied up with your famous chili or nacho dip, put a heavy-bottomed covered pot over low heat on the stove. Otherwise, grab an extension cord, set the slow cooker on the coffee table, and you won’t even have to leave your seat.

While at first blush it may appear that this cheater pitcher was inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Creedence Clearwater Revival, the credit belongs entirely to bottled smoke. Rim the glasses with Cheater Basic Smoked Salt with celery seed (page 48) if you like.

Even the most modest imbibers insist on a taste of this spiced rum punch. It does indeed pack a punch, so serve with caution.

Cheaper spring break brands of tequila are plenty good enough for mixing with tangy sour juices and margarita mix. To prove this point to ourselves and save some money, we set up a blind Cheata Rita taste test, comparing regular cheap tequila with fancy top-shelf $45-a-bottle brands. Honestly, we could not taste a difference. You’re probably thinking that we’ve oversmoked our taste buds, and you may be right. If so, that’s money in the bank, as we’re now saving the good stuff to pour over ice. We say go economy on the tequila and perk up the margarita mix with fresh lime and orange juices.

Back in the day when Min and her pal Philip Bernard attended Virginia Tech football pregame tailgate parties with fervent religiosity, a touch of special cider was often the incentive for warming up some team spirit. In truth, there is absolutely nothing Hokie about this fine cider punch, what with the assistance of the special team’s Tennessee whiskey and all.

Lemonade and champagne are among our top choices to serve with barbecue, so we mixed them together for an unusual shandy.

Cava is cheap but good Spanish sparkling wine. It makes a festive version of sangria.

In the late summer and early autumn, in the interior of the island, the great harvests of pumpkin and squash are preserved by the farmwives in varied fashion. Often the flesh is cooked down to a marmalade and sparked with candied oranges, or poached chunks of it are set to rest in a sweet vinegared brine. Too, thick slices of poached flesh are often rolled around in a sugary syrup and left to dry. Of a most luscious flavor, this candied pumpkin is sometimes used with dark rum and a handful of broken, bittersweet chocolate, to make a tart like the one we were served in the village of Milo. I was dazzled by it. But when I heard of the perplexing process by which the tart’s author had candied the pumpkin (she began by saying that I should gather fifty to sixty pumpkins), I was slightly shaken. I found, though, that simply roasting the flesh of a pumpkin or squash and then bathing it in caramelized sugar gives a flavor similar and perhaps even richer and requires far less drama.

Bestriding the shoulders of the island’s western verges is the perfect borgo medievale (medieval village) of Erice, called so after he who was the mythical son of Venus, sired by the king of the ancient tribe of the Elimi. There is a fascination about the village, its apocryphal tales and its truths—gifts, one thinks, of the cults that once worshiped the gods of beauty and love there and carved into the village walls scripts still undecipherable. Limpid, sweet is its air, and from its sweeping lofts one sees Mt. Etna, her fury diffused in far-off mists. And there on a small piazza sits the pasticceria of Maria Grammatico, who fashions the most gorgeous, most delicious evidences of rustic Sicilian pastry. Many of Signora Grammatico’s formulas are borrowed from the epoch of the Ericina convent pastry-making—it, too, having once practiced a temperate rather than a Baroque style. This is a version of the celebrated Ericina ricotta pie.