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Salvatore’s tails
with Salvatore Calabrese
Salvatore Calabrese - famously known as The Maestro - is one of the world’s top bartenders. He made a name for himself sourcing and mixing ‘Liquid History’, vintage spirits dating back to 1770.
In Asia recently I learned that my judgement of what is ‘sweet’ was very different to my hosts’ and it forced me to revisit what I thought were tried and tested cocktail recipes to make them tasty to the group. The realisation didn’t stop there: later our conversation tuned to smells, and it became apparent that what smells nice to one culture can be an aromatic turn-off to another. I mention all this as my bar team at Salvatore at Playboy Club, London have recently been constructing a new cocktail collection based on region-specific ingredients and featuring flavours that are culturally resonant with that country’s palate predilections. Counting 16 new drinks in all, the menu takes guests from Asia to America by way of Europe and Africa, looking to the palates of everywhere from Guatemala to Siberia for inspiration. To take two, why not drop by for a Nazca, a delicate and floral drink inspired by Lima, Peru. It’s similar to a Pisco Sour, but boasting the flavours of the Tamarillo, a tropical fruit that tastes like something between a green tomato and a passion fruit, mixed with the local brandy. Closer to home there’s the Tartan, a long and refreshing whisky drink, made by combining two different whiskies at opposite ends of the taste spectrum, with notes of honey, heather and lavender. While it may be off-putting to people who don’t like whisky, it’s actually aimed at exactly that drinker, to introduce them to the tastes and palate of Scotland. We mix 40ml Haig Club Single Grain Whisky (yes, that’s David Beckham’s whisky) with 10ml of Talisker Single Malt Scotch, 15ml Drambuie, 10ml Honey Syrup, 25ml Lemon Juice and a dash of Dandelion Bitters, topped with homemade heather and lavender soda. Day trips from Mayfair to distant lands, departing daily! Salute!
Travel broadens the mind, but it also broadens the palate. As someone who travels regularly (four countries last month, five the one before) on a kind of global food and drinks circuit, it’s ever more obvious that there are not only profound differences in the things we put on our plates and in our glasses, but in the way our senses seem tuned differently, to like some things at the expense of others. What I mean to say is that something is not just good to taste because it simply reflects a food, say, that comes from a particular region, but because a dish is also constructed with that country’s collective palate in mind. To take an obvious example, the quarter of the world’s population used to chilli in their food on a daily basis can find diets that don’t include it extremely bland. It’s the same with garlic too. And the same too if you grow up eating salty fish in Northern Europe, eating fresh Durian, spreading Marmite on your toast, or luxuriating on foie gras: it’s clear that your palate will have its own ‘neutral’ point between sweetness, sourness, bitterness and saltiness.
Salvatore’s Bar at Playboy 14 Old Park Lane Mayfair, W1K 1ND 020 7491 8586 www.playboyclublondon.com @cocktailmaestro
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