100% Minnesota cocktail

My wife and I invited my sister over for dinner last Friday. The plan was to try to eat 100% local (we came close). My sister has a big garden so the salad was her responsibility along with one other very important ingredient: a cucumber.

A while back I tweeted a shout out for info on locally produced booze and learned about Prairie Organic Vodka from Phillips Distilling Company. I hadn't heard of it but I knew the Phillips name and some of their products, but not all. They've got an interesting success story.

Back to the dinner party plans, I got to thinking about cocktails (naturally) and what to mix with Prairie Vodka to create a 100% Minnesota cocktail. Since vermouth starts out as wine (before fortification and the addition of spices, etc.) I looked to my local wineries for the answer and found it in Alexis Bailly's ice wine Isis.

I quickly Googled my idea to see if anyone else had come up with this. Naturally, someone had. I found a Canadian company that sells it pre-mixed under the name VICE, and there's a recipe on Alexis Bailly's website for a Minnesota Martini originally created for the Dakota Bar. The Dakota recipe calls for a twist of orange. NOT Minnesota! Enter: my sister's Minnesota grown cucumber.

We combined 3 oz of Prairie Vodka and 1 oz of Isis and garnished with rolled strips of cucumber flesh (no peel) on a toothpick. The result was delicious. The mix created just the right balance of booziness and sweetness and the cucumber with it's melon flavor and slight bitterness made this cocktail sing. By the time we finished our drinks and ate the cucumber pieces, they had moved toward a more pickled flavor, capping a very rewarding experience. So we had another, and you should too.

Tasting #5 - Saint Croix Vineyards Marechal Foch

From the Saint Croix Vineyards website (www.scvwines.com) "Our Marechal Foch Reserve is a dry, medium bodied red wine with a black cherry nose and an intense color. It is aged in American oak barrels and is the perfect choice for those who prefer a classic red wine."

The other characteristic of this wine that we picked up right away is that, typical for Marechal Foch, it is somewhat acidic. We drank this with grilled lamb loin chops and herbed vegetables. Our meal didn't bring out the dark fruit we were hoping for, but we drank a little more anyway, and saved the remaining wine. (Thanks again VacuVin).

The next day I made the family chicken and grilled a ribeye liberally seasoned with pepper and coarse salt for myself. I poured the last glass from the bottle and had a completely different experience. My seasoned beef and the somewhat salty rice dish we had changed the character of this wine completely. It was very good, and the two separate pairings were a really interesting experience for a novice like me. In subsequent research I learned that acidic wines pair well with salty food. This is proof. We'll buy some more of this and will look for it blended with other wines as well.

Tasting #4 - Alexis Bailly Seyval Blanc

From the AB website (www.abvwines.com): "The Seyval Blanc is our premium white wine. Named for the French Horticulturist who developed the variety during WWI, the Seyval came to the United States in the 1960's when pioneers, like David Bailly, were looking for wine grapes that could be grown outside of the norms of Califonia. With its balance of clean bright fruit and a dry crisp finish, the Seyval is a wine that is both elegant and appealing."

I couldn't agree more. I would choose this over more traditional dry whites. It's lighter in body than chardonnay and, to me, instantly more pleasant tasting. It's fruity and crisp, period. There is great reward in this simplicity. We drank it with pork tenderloin and it worked beautifully. More research is necessary (dang!), as this is a delicious white wine that I'm anxious to pair with Alexis Bailly's recommendations as well.

Tasting #1 - Alexis Bailly - Voyageur

First in the cold climate wine tasting experiment is Voyageur from Alexis Bailly Vineyard in Hastings. ABV describes it as "...a big, opulent and rich red wine that uses a blend of Alexis Bailly grapes -- old world French grapes and new varieties developed by the University of Minnesota."

The grapes used in Voyageur are Leon Millot and Marechal Foch (part of ABV's original plantings - the vines came from France), and Frontenac, one of the new world grapes developed at the University of Minnesota.

ABV says it is "deeply colored with rich flavor, bold and opulent fruit flavors of black berries, smoky vanilla aromas." True. The color is very pleasant, the flavor is driven by the fruit and finishes dry. I wasn't able to ID the aroma as smoky vanilla with our first tasting, but revisiting a taste after reading the notes, I can see how they arrive at that description.

There was something about this that was completely unfamiliar to me. Not that I'm an expert by any stretch, but certainly have had enough wine in my life to recognize a thing or two. This one was definately different, but it made me curious to try more. Of course there are million things that affect the taste. I've got to get more familiar with what those things are locally.

We drank this with spaghetti in a rich sauce and wild rice meatballs. ABV recommends "hearty pastas, grilled meats, wild game." It worked with our meal, but it made me want to try it with wild game. This one is a good candidate for more research.