Thursday, March 6, 2008

BYOB Food & Drink Pairings

We have some good friends that share our interest in trying out food & drink pairings, and we often go to BYOB restaurants in Chicago (there are many here). We've had some great successes, some okay ones, and one or two less-than-stellar ones along the way.

Here are a few of our our recent favorites:

  • Rye whiskey sipped neat or on ice with BBQ ribs and brisket - David Soto, the spirits guru at Sam's Wine & Spirits, suggested this one and boy was he right! We got some interesting looks for sipping rye whiskey at the restaurant, but it was worth it.
  • Several chilled Aquavits for classic Swedish and Norwegian food - the restaurant even had the chilled glasses on hand for us. One of our friends is Swedish, so she selected some of our pairings (and brought along some great spirits direct from Sweden).
  • New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc for Lebanese food - we struggled with this one because some of us had red meat and some had chicken or vegetarian entrees, but the wine had enough body & substance, with a nice acidity, to work pretty well for all of us.
Anyone got any great (and unorthodox) food & drink pairings we can try for our next BYOB adventure?

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