Fat-washed cocktails are taking off in Hong Kong, inspired by PDT’s Benton’s Old Fashioned
- Inspired by the Old Fashioned, bars are using bacon fat and butter in a time-honoured ‘new’ drinks fad
- Mr Brown in Wan Chai uses unsalted butter to create My Butter Half, a smooth, spirit-forward drink
“Fat-washing” as a trend in cocktails arguably began in 2007, with the creation of the Benton’s Old Fashioned, by Don Lee, at New York’s PDT speakeasy.
Now a fixture on PDT menus in New York and Hong Kong, at the Landmark Mandarin Oriental, the Benton’s Old Fashioned is made with bourbon whiskey infused with bacon fat. It is a modern classic, and was considered revolutionary when introduced. It has influenced countless imitations – some more successful than others.
However, the idea that fat and alcohol go well together was well established long before Lee had his moment of inspiration. Coffee cocktails topped with cream have been around since at least the 19th century, and since the middle of the 20th, Irish coffee, it has been said, has provided “in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar and fat”.
“It’s a mixture of old and new,” says Raphael Meyer, bar manager at Mr Brown, in Wan Chai, and a fan of fat-washing. “The original method came from a long time ago. There is a milk punch recipe dating from 1711. The milk made the drink smoother, and I think butter washing can have the same effect.”
One of the cocktails on Meyer’s list is called My Butter Half and, like the PDT cocktail, it is derived from the Old Fashioned, a simple combination of spirit, sugar and bitters.
With the food at Mr Brown focused on smoky barbecued meats, bacon grease might have been an apt choice for a fat-washed signature drink, but Meyer says he wanted to try something subtler, and with an appeal to non-meat-eating drinkers. He chose to wash his bourbon with unsalted butter.
“I’ve tried bacon fat, and that’s interesting. It gives a drink a smokiness that can really play well in cocktails, but now there are lots of vegans around and they’re a bit iffy about that. I have another cocktail called Ashes to Ashes, which is basically a whisky sour but with added smokiness. For that I mixed a peated scotch with a mescal combined with activated charcoal,” he says.
Activated charcoal is a filter for toxins, which, says Meyer with a grin, makes the drink “healthy”, but My Butter Half has no such pretensions. For people who like alcohol and dairy products this is pure sensuous indulgence.
“For the Old Fashioned, butter adds a silkiness as well as a richness of flavour. And as soon as you smell butter it gives you that feeling of pleasantness. It takes you back to childhood. It reminds you of baking and cookies and so on. In an Old Fashioned like this it really ties the bourbon and caramel notes together,” says Meyer.
When Lee first suggested the Benton’s Old Fashioned to PDT founder Jim Meehan, the latter thought fat-washing too complicated a process to require of bartenders, and asked Lee to process the bourbon at home. He hadn’t imagined the cocktail would be such a hit, but it swiftly became the bar’s bestseller, and bars all over the world have now adopted the technique.
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In fact, according to Meyer, it’s not that hard to master, requires no complicated equipment and you can do it at home.
“I take a big chunk of butter, about 200 grams, and I cook it down so it’s browned, which releases a bit more of the flavour, and there’s a hint of something like popcorn. As soon as it’s brown I add the bourbon, mix them together for a few minutes, and then leave the mixture overnight in the freezer. The cold solidifies the fat, and separates it and the spirit into two layers, with the butter on top, so it’s easier to remove before straining – but the butter flavour stays in the bourbon. I use unsalted butter, because I add a golden syrup that I salt myself. I take a traditional golden syrup, and as well as the salt add some orange peel, to make something that tastes like salted caramel with a touch of zestiness to it,” he says.
Although the cocktail could be made with other American whiskeys, Meyer chooses Rebel Yell Kentucky Straight Bourbon, a popular drink in America’s Southern states since 1936.
It also has a certain appeal to British Rock musicians. Billy Idol claims to have written his song Rebel Yell, a 1983 hit, after a session drinking the whiskey with the Rolling Stones.
Rebel Yell has a buttery, honeyed flavour profile, which Meyer has accentuated, although the fat washing tends to neutralise the whiskey’s spicier notes.
“I like Rebel Yell because it has its own caramel characteristics,” he says.
As with all Old Fashioneds, the heart and soul of the drink is a generous shot of the spirit. Meyer pours about 50ml of bourbon over a large ice cube into an Old Fashioned or rocks glass, then adds about a quarter of a shot of syrup, and two types of bitters.
“I wait for the glass to be coated with condensation and then give it about five to 10 more seconds. Then it’s chilled down. You don’t want to over-dilute the cocktail with too much stirring. The Old Fashioned is definitely a spirit-forward drink,” he says.
“I use about three dashes of Angostura bitters and six dashes of orange bitters. A lot of bartenders mix too many flavours, so you get this confusion in the mouth. I like to use flavours that people are familiar with. It’s quite smooth but you still get the kick of the bourbon. It’s definitely a sipping drink.”
He’s right, and it’s distinctly moreish.
The same technique used for “washing” the bourbon can be applied to more or less any spirit or edible fat.
“You can do it with any fat that will solidify. I’m going to try fat-washing with coconut oil next,” he says.
Other notable fat-washed cocktails available around Central include The Sun Also Rises, which combines copra fat-washed applejack with curry leaf-infused gin, and can be found at The Old Man, and Quinary’s Siu Aap, which takes Bacardi 8 rum washed with duck fat as its spirit base. And, of course, there is always the Benton’s Old Fashioned at PDT.
