The combination of food and cocktails is still in its infancy, at least in Italy. The restaurants that offer a corner bar are few, the rooms with a kitchen at the height of the mixing still scarce, the places where each dish was accompanied in paper to a specific drink, insistent. Tasting menu with cocktail pairing choices as an alternative to wine, science fiction.
We are back, light years compared to international experiences, but «we are a wine country and the spread and attachment of Italians to wine is difficult to beat. But it is a growing trend and we want to keep up with the times ", explains Anna Maschio, new generation of the famous distillery Bonaventura Maschio of Gaiarine (TV) and company marketing manager. Together with his brother, the master distiller Andrea, they have been engaged for years in a cultural battle: promoting the cocktail pairing culture in Italy. This year they did it with a brand new formula, that is to say gathering together the chefs of the JRE – Italia association and their bartenders and putting them in competition. To win, chef Marcello Trentini of the Magorabin restaurant in Turin and mixologist Carlotta Linzalata.

The rules for not making mistakes

"The Bonaventura Maschio Pairing Challenge can be considered a cross-section of the current catering world, in which the collaboration between bartenders and the kitchen is increasing day by day," confirmed jury president Marco Reitano. We are at the beginning of a phenomenon, this is certain, but the concept of pairing remains to be defined. A meal cocktail is a drink that is studied for consumption at the table, for taste, alcohol content, quantity of service. In short, Negroni and Martini will hardly be compatible with a dinner since the cocktail must be combined at the gustatory level with the dish served, not overhanging it, but managing to enhance the dish itself. The bitter note of a tonic, the spiciness of ginger, the power of a whiskey are difficult to manage, while for example a slight sparkling, citrus flavors, acidity and a slight sweetness will be more easily combined. Pairing also remains a conceptual issue. Creating a red thread of ingredients and territories, stories and techniques makes pairing sensible, like the one between cotechino and Lambrusco.

Teamwork

Today it is difficult to see dishes and cocktails created at the table to live together, indeed impossible. We find ourselves more than anything in front of attempts to find the right drink for a dish already made or, vice versa (but much more rarely), to cook something that goes well with a barman creation. This is why the Bonaventura Maschio Pairing Challenge 2019 wanted to raise the level of difficulty: not only making two good recipes in itself and being able to combine them, but enhancing a distinctive element such as grape brandy both on the plate and in the glass. During the competition, the eight couples challenged each other by presenting a combination of a dish and a signature cocktail, both containing a variant of the Prime Uve grape distillate.

A matter of pride

"Chefs and bartenders work on parallel tracks, but to create a good match they have to communicate. And one of the two must take a step back ", Filippo Sisti has very clear ideas, and properly. An avant-garde Bartender, he crossed the frontier of pairing, literally going to cook his own cocktails, both in mixing and in the preparation of the individual ingredients. In his Talea, a local in Milan, the bottles of alcohol behind the counter are a meager ten (vodka, rum, etc.), but there are about a hundred home-made preparations with which the «By experience to make a good pairing should be made work on two symbiotic elements, one liquid and one solid, and not wait for one to fit into the other. But it is difficult, the chefs still tend to want to do their own cooking and it is therefore up to the barman to work accordingly, with humility, "continues Filippo. «To make a good pairing you have to taste the dishes, feel the flavors, the nuances, understand their meaning and only then can you design or choose a cocktail right in the mouth and on the head, which after every sip completes each bite and creates an experience overall. "
While waiting for the avant-garde to become an institution, you can go and have a drink.