Pork Cuts And Cocktails: A Guide To Pairing Different Meat Cuts With Drinks
While pairing a cocktail with different kinds of meat dishes, it is crucial to explore how a drink interacts with the preparation to highlight its overall flavours. Pork is one such protein whose cuts contain different kinds of tasting notes and textures such that even the cooking method applied to prepare pork dishes changes accordingly.
While pork ribs are generally barbecued on an open flame, pulled pork is slow cooked to release its juices and pork belly is infused with sweet and tangy flavours to bring out its inherent fatty tastes. Essentially, as these flavours and cooking techniques change according to pork cuts, so too the cocktails that are paired with pork differ to compliment their flavours.
Read on below to know more about some of the pork cuts that are turned into interesting culinary preparations and how they are paired with different cocktails according to their flavours and cooking techniques:
Barbequed Pork Ribs
Recommended Pairing: Rum Punch
Come summer, as the barbecues get curling on the patio or in one’s home garden, some of the meat cuts that are often grilled on an open flame are pork ribs. These are cuts with soft and mildly chewy textures and when lightly marinated and placed on a barbecue, they acquire smoky and charred notes which build into their earthy tastes. Such meat cuts are an excellent pairing with cocktails that carry caramelised and citrusy notes which lift up this smokiness. Pork ribs can then be paired with a caramelised rum punch made using 30 ml Captain Morgan Dark Rum or any other premium rum of choice.
Pulled Pork
Recommended Pairing: Smoked Paloma
Pork shoulder or pulled pork is prepared by slow cooking this meat cut in a mix of different spices. Tender pieces of pulled pork are complete with earthy, salty and juicy notes. This meat cut cooked in a grill until soft and pink can be paired with a smoked paloma which carries complimentary charred and woody notes. Pulled pork served with a side of potatoes can go well with a sour and sweet, smoky paloma made using 30 ml Don Julio Blanco Tequila or any other premium tequila of choice.
Grilled Pork Chops
Recommended Pairing: Old Fashioned
Another pork cut that is traditionally prepared for its rich taste is pork chops. It contains sweet yet charred and umami notes that are infused with the woody and earthy flavours of the grill on which they are cooked. Aromatic woods infuse their fragrances into pork chops as well, to lend them deeper complexity. Such an earthy meat cut can go well with a classic old fashioned made using 30 ml Johnnie Walker Black Label or any other premium whisky of choice that is blended with quality bitters for sourness and acidity.
Glazed And Cured Ham
Recommended Pairing: Pineapple Daiquiri
Generally, ham is made by salting pork and allowing it to rest, either by smoking it or curing it. Ham has a sweet, salty taste and sometimes it is also infused with different herbs for a more flavourful finish. One of the cocktails that balances out some of the ham’s more pronounced notes is the sweet, sour and tart pineapple daiquiri blended by using 30 ml Captain Morgan Dark Rum or any other premium rum of choice.
Pork Belly
Recommended Pairing: Ginger-infused Whisky Sour
Complete with fatty, sweet and tangy flavours, a well-cooked pork belly can produce a very rich tasting experience. What undercuts some of its more juicy and fatty tasting notes is a classic whisky sour infused with the mild spice of shaved ginger. Prepare this tart and sour drink using 30 ml Johnnie Walker Gold Label or any other premium whisky of choice and muddled ginger to highlight these complex bitter and spicy flavours that undercut the fatty and juicy notes of the meat.
Drink Responsibly. This communication is for audiences above the age of 25.
