Whisky and a cheese and onion toastie

You may be thinking more of whisky in the context of haggis this week given Burns Night is coming up but an accidental pairing suggested another direction to take it

I’d just finished an online whisky tasting for my Substack subscribers and was a bit peckish but couldn’t be bothered to make a proper meal so rustled up a cheese and onion toastie (grilled cheese sandwich) with the glass of Shackleton whisky I was finishing off. (Drunk neat with a splash of water)

I hadn’t consciously thought it through but whisky goes well with cheddar so why not a toastie? Shackleton is a light, versatile blended malt whisky (which you can currently buy from Waitrose for £20) and worked really well. 

A perfect late night winter snack when you didn’t think you were going to be hungry and suddenly are ...

For other whisky pairings see Which Foods pair best with Whisky 

And if you’d like to join my Substack which contains all my up to the minute food and wine tips and recommendations sign up here.

Photo (not of the toastie I made) by Brent Hofacker at shutterstock.com

Grappa, chocolate and orange

There were a lot of enjoyable wine matches in Trentino last week - the indigenous wines work really well with the local alpine food - but this unusual grappa pairing at the Campiglio Bellavista in Madonna di Campiglio was the standout combination.

The hotel regularly put out nuts and crisps with the aperitifs but when we went for an after dinner grappa they served a plate of orange slices and dark chocolate buttons instead.

I wouldn’t have imagined they would go with the grappas at all but they actually worked remarkably well as well as adding a bit of ceremony to the serving.

The two grappas we tried were the Casimiro Grappa di Solaris and the Segnana Grappa di Traminer, neither available in the UK so far as I can see. Both were delicious though I preferred the slightly more floral solaris.

The other big plus about drinking grappa which is the go-to drink of the region is that it’s much cheaper than ordering a gin or other spirit. Less than half the price, in fact!

For other chocolate pairing ideas read 3 things you need to think about when pairing wine with chocolate 

Pork apricot and pistachio terrine with an Old-fashioned cocktail

Since my trip to Mexico where wine was particularly expensive I’ve been drinking rather more cocktails (no comment!) and so have been thinking about the fact that they may still be what you’re sipping when the first course arrives

I thought that was possible at The Corner House in Canterbury who make their own Old Fashioned with Copper Rivet Masthouse whisky which they age for 30 days in their own oak barrels and so consciously ordered a pork, apricot and pistachio terrine which I thought might go with it.

In fact it did - really well. There was a slight orangey note to the drink that worked well with the pork and apricot and the whisky offset perfectly the slight fattiness of the terrine.

It would be easy to replicate at home too. Even if you’re don’t make your own terrine (nor do I!) you can easily pick one from a good deli and you can even buy pre-bottled Old Fashioned these days. Harvey Nichols does a good one which would make a nice Christmas present

If you want to make one from scratch, which is really easy if you have the right ingredients, there’s a good guide to making one on the liquor.com site.

For other pork pairings see Which wines pair best with pork

Baba with rum

Yes, you did read that right. Baba with rum not rum baba.

It was one of the dishes that was served by top pastry chef Pierre Hermé at the Constance Festival Culinaire in Mauritius as a finale to the multi-Michelin-starred tribute dinner for chef Serge Vieira who tragically died last year at the age of 46.

Described - as only the French can - as baba infiniment exotique it was paired with a local Mauritian spiced rum liqueur, Chamarel Vanille. which undergoes a second maturation in a cask to which vanilla is added.

What Pierre had done was take the rum out of the baba and serve it alongside as a drink pairing. Which was an absolute game changer, leaving the cake much fresher and lighter. It was served on a bed of passionfruit and finely sliced pineapple and fine shards of chocolate all of which went with the Chamarel rum liqueur too.

You can buy it in the UK from Master of Malt for £36.55.

It's hard to think of a wine pairing that would have worked as well.

More food and wine matches from the festival shortly including the pairings for the Deutz trophy for which I was one of the judges.