Nikas Culinaria

(Image from USA Pear media library)
Its FINALLY starting to cool off to a seasonal fall temperature around here, helping me feel a bit more in-season. The tree colors peaked this weekend, yesterday was psychedelic with the riotous oranges, yellows, and reds of the sugar maples around here. Other than pumpkins and gourds and squashes and apples, I am seeing lots of pears in the store now and I have been reveling in trying new varieties. I wrote just previously about the seckel pear in a recipe where I served it simply sliced on the plate (”Purple Passion: homegrown eggplant“).

Along this pear tangent, I am now developing a recipe for a pear cocktail for the pear industry’s “Liquid Pearfection” cocktail contest.

Click the graphic above to go to the page at USA Pears (a pear lobby) where you can get information for entering your recipe!

Do it quickly because the contest ends October 10th.

This activity was fun, sort of like a chemistry experiment. We used our juicer to juice some red or crimson bartlett pears and seckel (sugar) pears. If you do this, I recommend passing the juice through a cheesecloth to sieve off the foamy particulate. I then sat down with some spirits I bought just for this cocktail, the juices (bartlett, seckel, and apple), homemade simple syrup, salt, lemon juice, and pencil and paper.

I wanted to use a spirit that was not something you see in everyday cocktails here in the US and which gave it a latino twist. To this end, I used a Colombian spirit called Aguardiente, a high octane anise flavored drink that is usually had straight out of tiny little stainless steel cups by macho people (male or female, my grandma can put them away for sure).I could not get a hold of the “good” type called Aguardiente Cristal (order here) so I had to settle for the other kind you see in the photo above.

I also could not get my hands on the Colombian rum called “Ron Viejo de Caldas” by the same company (order here) so I had to settle for Puerto Rican Bacardi Gold rum (rum in spanish is ron). (I am not associated with the pear lobby or the alcohol company - zero profit for me - I am just giving you a resource for finding these “rare” spirits. They may be easily had where you live!)I googled pear and fennel (which has an anise flavor) and found that there are quite a few restaurants serving pear and shaved fennel salads. This hinted to me that the anise flavor may pair with pear well.

As we generally do not drink much at all and when we do its Guinness beer, we were lightweights in our taste trials. Keep this in mind regarding our taste testing.

While my husband was not into the flavor, I liked it. My recipe has the alcohol on the light side because the aquardiente has such an assertive (overpowering?) flavor. The recipe that used the rum also included the freshly made apple juice, that was fantastic.

I will post my pear cocktail recipe in the sidebar and here after October 10th (after the contest closes) and if I win, I will let you know!

If you decide to enter, share your recipe too, can’t wait to see what you all come up with.

Related Posts:

• Purple Passion: homegrown eggplant

Product links: (no profit)

• Aquardiente Cristal
• Ron Viejo de Caldas

Technorati Tags: seasonal, fall, sugar maple, pear, pear cocktail, Liquid Pearfection, cocktail, contest, USA Pears, chemistry, experiment, bartlett, seckel, juice, apple, simple syrup, lemon juice, latino, twist, Colombian, high octane, anise, Aguardiente, Cristal, Colombia, Bacardi, Gold, rum, ron, alcohol, spirit, fennel, shaved fennel, Guinness