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As we shift back into the rhythm of going out for margaritas with friends on Fridays, bumping elbows with unmasked strangers at bars and clutching cocktail glasses instead of surreptitious pandemic takeout cocktails, certain trends have emerged. Bartenders are serving MSG martinis, beet-stained tiki drinks and other savory, vegetal tipples. In just the last two weeks, I’ve seen MSG integrated into cocktails via salt rims, olive brines and briny solutions. But I’m curious about cocktails that are inherently and naturally savory, without the addition of MSG and with naturally derived umami.
Years ago, my friend Melanie texted me with great indignation. “I saw a store advertising ‘warm winter smoothies’ – isn’t that just soup?”
“I suppose so,” I told her, pondering this suddenly fuzzy borderline. This notion that the boundaries between soup territory and smoothie territory can be disputed has remained with me.
One more recent night, my friend Margaret Eby, former senior editor at Food and Wine and current editorial lead at Food52, unveiled to me a fantasy pop-up idea that had been simmering in her mind for years: Hard Soup, a night of soup-themed cocktails.
“People have been talking about whether hot dogs are sandwiches, and whether nachos are salad. And it got me thinking that the line between soups and cocktails is pretty thin. We all know bloody mary is just alcoholic gazpacho, right? So why not expand on that concept and make more savory drinks that are soup-inspired? Whenever I go to a bar and I don’t want a cocktail that’s sweet, the options are usually a martini or a bloody mary, but that shouldn’t be so. There’s a whole world of interesting, savory, umami[-rich] ingredients that make for great cocktails—and great soups,” Eby told me.
