Pairings

Liqueur and ice cream
"Gastronom" №8 (43) August 2005

Ice cream stopped to be a conventional dessert.

Today it is turned into original cold starters and is even included into main dishes. As such, it enjoys an unlimited choice of accompanying drinks — from Muscat wines to whiskey. How to find an ideal match?

Classic ice cream is made with milk or cream. It has a distinctive texture and can be made with various aromatisers and fillings. All this opens room for experiments and allows to create endless combinations with alcoholic drinks. Although the fact that the dessert is sweet puts certain limitations. Besides, it is very cold — so better to choose strong partners with intense flavours. They take low temperature better than those of fine taste.

It’s good if flavours of the dessert and the drink echo each other, say, they are both sweet or fruity. Liqueurs — cassis, cherry, strawberry and raspberry — can be served as an option with frozen desserts with corresponding flavours. Egg-based ice cream is ideally matched by liqueurs made of cream.

When choosing a wine, have a look at Muscats. They go with rich cream based, light yoghurt based and fruit based ice creams. Those types also go in harmony with semisweet sparkling Asti from Italy. A reasonable combination is made with intense dessert wines — Sauternes, late harvested Alsace Riesling and Gewurztraminer, Italian vin santo. You can ’play’ with Spanish sherries of medium sweetness. We recommend light ice wines of Germany and Austria for sorbets, especially the lemon ones.

Champagne and any other sparkling wine can be turned into a refreshing dessert granite. A thin layer of wine is frozen and then served as cut ice. Sweet ciders and fruit beer match light ice cream, sorbet and fruit ice. In order to liven up the taste of the desserts, you can add a few drops of rum or gin.

Try to diversify ice cream flavours using various drinks and you will see how exciting it can get. You can experiment with fruit juices or lemonade, or take an alcoholic drink, thus turning ice cream into a cocktail. A starting point for original cocktails can be Brandy Ice — vanilla ice cream, brandy and chocolate liqueur. Classic proportion is three to one, but you can opt for different ice creams, brandies and liqueurs or change their proportions.

If there are vegetables, herbs and spices instead of sweet ingredients, then ice cream becomes a cold starter or a component of the main dish. Beer, wine and whiskey are served with them. For example, with pumpkin, sorrel or beetroot ice cream with potato chips and green salad offer unfiltered wheat beer. Tuna carpaccio with frozen wasabi and sesame dressing combine with white crisp wine Picpoul de Pinet from Languedoc. Cold dishes with seafood and sorbet serve with soft whiskey featuring herbal or salty aromas.