Portland Culinary Alliance

Have you had your five servings of veggies today? Perhaps you should have a cocktail.

PCA members and guests who attended Saturday’s program at The Gilt Club could have had a V-8 but instead opted to get their cucumbers, tomatoes and red peppers in vodka, shaken with ice and other tasty ingredients and sipped from a martini glass. As we arrived we were served a refreshing cocktail made with cucumber-infused vodka, basil and lime. Called Tracy’s First Love, it’s Gilt’s most popular cocktail.

Owner Jamie Dunn and bartender Jess Koenig put us to work making our own bacon salt. We mashed crisp (deep-fried, in fact) bacon with a muddling stick at the bottom of a glass. We added Morton coarse Kosher salt and mashed it some more. The rims of our martini glasses were dipped in bacon salt after being rubbed with a wedge of lemon.

It was for a cocktail called the BLT and we observed the process from beginning to (slurp!) end. The specialty BLT infused vodka was already prepared, so we didn’t have to wait the days or weeks for a vodka infusion to be just right. But we got to see how it’s done. Tomatoes were grilled and sliced and red peppers were roasted, peeled and sliced. Into a vat of vodka they went, along with torn fresh basil leaves. Once the red vodka’s ready to go on display in the bar, it goes in a bottle or an attractive glass jar purchased from infusionjars.com

We also learned about infusions using tequila, brandy, gin and amaretto, with a vast number of fruits and vegetables. At Gilt Club they even make a mole infusion, with cocoa nibs in vodka. You can see their entire cocktail menu at giltclub.com.