“Lots of cocktails use dairy, but goat cheese is . . . a little different,” said Josh “Sonic” Relkin of Sable on challenging his fellow Alinea vet Micah Melton with the ingredient. Melton, now chef de cuisine at the Aviary, set out to make it even more different, stripping a log of Primo Taglio chevre of its color and creaminess while retaining its tang. Mind-bending tricks like that, after all, are what the rotary evaporators at Grant Achatz and Nick Kokonas’s chem lab/cocktail lounge are there for.
“It’s a really simple drink,” said Melton. As long as you have a rotovap handy.
View a slideshow of Micah Melton making a goat cheese cocktail.
Step-by-step instructions for making an Aviary bartender’s goat cheese cocktail
Micah Melton demonstrates his “bleu” martini.
Place a couple of pickled blueberries in the bottom of a coupe. Fill a mixing glass with ice cubes and add a pinch of sugar and salt, then the goat cheese distillate, aquavit, and vermouth. Stir gently and pour or strain into the prepared coupe.
