What to Serve with Fizzy Highballs: 7 Food Pairing Matches
Pairing cocktails with food requires thinking about textures and flavours — it’s really a whole other skill novice mixologists gradually learn over time. The highball’s strength should only complement while not overpowering the dish. Lighter cocktails often pair best with delicate and more savoury dishes. With different taste profiles for different distilled spirits (some clean and neutral while some sweeter on the palate), you’ll want to pair your foods for your meals accordingly. While sweet [https://in.thebar.com/articles/pairing-alcohol-with-sweet-food-heres-what-to-remember] and spicy [https://in.thebar.com/articles/pairing-alcohol-with-spicy-food-here-are-some-essential-things-to-know] foods are all paired with a range of spirits and cocktail recipes, let’s find out how fizzy cocktails can be paired with the right easy-to-make highball recipes.
Foods for Fizzy Highballs
Whether your simply-made highballs include tonic water or soda water like Black Dog Soda for fizz and carbonation, a well-made fizzy highball will either have notes of bitterness (owing to tonic water) or higher carbonation and mineral content. Lighter and fizzier highballs generally pair best with seafoods, salads and meat-based dishes. For instance, seafood, being rich and flavourful, is paired with fizzier drinks so that the fizz can lighten the more complex flavours of these savoury foods. Other crunchier bites like crisps and tacos can also be paired with highballs of your choosing during a gathering or for evening snacks without being too overwhelmingly flavourful.
Tacos and Tortillas to Begin With
Mexican foods are known for their robust salty, savoury (umami), and most prominently, spicy flavours along with the frequent use of chillies and cilantro to provide a herbal touch. Classic Mexican bites like tacos and even tortillas pair well with fizzy highballs, offering complementary savoury flavours to the fizz in your soda highballs. Such snacks usually go along with a classic Paloma highball, with tequila, soda and a wedge of lime or grapefruit as a garnish, all served in a simple highball glass.
Fizzy Fusion with Thai Food
While we’ve looked at Mexican tacos, these can take an innovative spin by blending them with foods from Asian cuisines, most notably Thai cuisine. Both cuisines from opposite parts of the world go well together because they’re both largely savoury and spicy in their flavour profiles, making them very similar in taste and thus easier to create fusions from. A dish like Thai red curry tacos, made with classic Thai red curry, coconut milk, and tacos as the base, can also be paired with citrussy, tarty and fizzy highballs with notes of sweetness after a heavily savoury meal like this.
Barbecue Meat
If you’re looking for smoky and crispy meat to balance your fizz-filled highballs and willing to prepare a dish from scratch, tossing some meat into the barbecue for your gathering might be a good go-to for pairing. Typically, a citrus highball can be paired with glazed meat like pork or steak because the fruit and citrus notes of the highball can go along with the charring and the sweetness of the glazed meat.
When it comes to tequila, many types of tequila have savoury flavours and pair well with sweeter food instead, making them perfect for dessert after meals like dinner. However, uncomplicated highballs made with 30 ml of Don Julio Blanco Tequila or other tequila should you choose complement servings of seafood and any meals with citrus in them.
Also Read: From Chaas To A Classic Highball, Here Are 6 Drinks To Pair With Biryani
Chicken and Vegetable Skewers
Like the other umami-flavoured fusion dishes described above, Asian appetisers like chicken and vegetable skewers, available in both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options, are paired suitably with whisky-based fizzy highballs. The spicy Gochujang (Korean chilli paste) mixed with coconut milk lends a deliciously savoury and creamy tone to this easy fusion dish, suited for those who are looking for something on the spicier end. Fizzy highballs after the meal can help balance the additional spices in these snacks.
Pairing Fish with Fizz
While chicken, pork and beef go along with a range of soda-based highballs, fish is no stranger. A fruit-based highball with soda paired with baked or steamed fish is sure to provide similar light, fizzy and sweet effects when meat is usually paired with fizz-based highballs. Such drinks also do not overwhelm any garlic or savoury flavours infused in the fish.
Scallops and Soda
Similarly, seafood is also well-known for being consumed alongside fizzy tonic and soda highballs. For example, scallops served with a pistachio-like emulsion and some simple fruits like lemons or berries, followed by a pairing with a whisky highball can act as a balanced combination for your next meal, if you savour meals from the coast. The bubbles and acidity from the fruits and soda in the highball can cut through the savouriness of the scallops and function as a palate-cleanser.
Lemon-Lime Sodas and Salads
While fizzy highballs are suitably paired with a host of meat-based options like you’ve seen now, don’t shy away from pairing them with light, citrus salads too for more veg-based options. For some lighter bites that are not as heavy as a whole meaty meal, pair any soda highball with a citrus salad made with a mix of bitter and sweet citrus fruits, topped off and glazed with honey or lemon. A salad like this with the bubbles of Black Dog Soda is ideal for a fruity and fizzy mouthfeel.
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