Each year, the first full week of April sees all eyes on Augusta, Ga. Sure, the green jacket and magnolias are iconic, but nothing gets us into the Masters spirit at home like a pimento cheese sandwich. The staple has been on the menu at the golf tournament since 1948. Back then, one sandwich would set you back 25 cents, and today it’s priced at an incredibly reasonable $1.50. That means a lot of pimento cheese gets eaten in these seven days.
At the brand-new neighborhood bar Parley in Austin, sports aren’t the main draw, but they’re certainly important. Since opening, the team has run football and college basketball specials, so they knew screening the Masters at the bar would be a hit. They just had to figure out what drink fit the occasion.
Sure, an Azalea, the official cocktail of the tournament, or a Transfusion would work, but there’s a somewhat-natural fit that had yet to be explored. Pimento cheese and Dirty Martinis have a friend in common: the olive. The pepper, which has long been farmed in Georgia and even lends the state one of its nicknames, is the one you’ll find adding a pop of color to a stuffed olive. It’s also, expectedly, the key ingredient in pimento cheese. Why not put it all together?
“For the Masters’ Martini, we set out to create something timeless with a subtle nod to the flavors of the tournament,” Terance Robson, co-founder and creative director of Parley, tells us. So that’s what they’ve done. The bar’s version takes a cue from blue cheese iterations and then goes a step further. “The base starts with Weber Ranch Vodka washed with pimento cheese using a sous vide process to fully extract its rich, savory character,” Robson explains. “It’s then frozen and clarified, resulting in a clean, silky spirit with a delicate, creamy depth and a refined expression of pimento cheese.”
To that, the team adds a blend of white vermouth, crisp white wine, and dry sherry — basically a house-made dry aperitif. “The wine adds bright acidity, the vermouth brings botanical and floral notes, and the sherry lends a subtle savory, nutty complexity,” says Robson. The last components are house brine and saline to unify and balance the drink. It’s served ice-cold with three pimento cheese-stuffed olives. “It’s a cocktail that feels both classic and unmistakably rooted in the spirit of the Masters,” says Robson. No matter what happens on the course, if you sip one of these, you’ll feel like a winner.
The article This Austin Bar’s Pimento Cheese Martini Is Ready for the Masters appeared first on VinePair.