Nathan Myhrvold, author of Modernist Cuisine, recently shared some neat tricks for adding barrel-aged flavor to cocktails on starchefs.com. Nathan says:
“When you age a liquid in a wood barrel, whether it’s wine or it’s whisky, you wind up leeching some flavor compounds out of the wood, and those wood flavor compounds can be amazing. Until recently, those things have been the purview of the winemaker or the whisky maker, but there’s no reason you can’t do those extractions as a mixologist or cocktail chef or whatever you want to call it.”
Just last week, Star Chefs announced that Modernist Cuisine coauthor Chris Young will make another appearance at the Star Chefs Congress (October 2-4, 2011, at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City) this year. Chris will make his main-stage presentation on the afternoon of October 3. His talk will cover several techniques from Modernist Cuisine.