 Champagne with barbecue?
It's surprisingly good! The bubbles cleanse the palate of the sweet and heat, the acidity cuts the fat, and it just makes everything more festive. Madame Bollinger (1884 - 1977), one of the grande dames of French Champagne, said it best: "I drink it when I'm happy and when I'm sad. Sometimes, I drink it when I'm alone. When I have company I consider it obligatory. I trifle with it if I'm not hungry and drink it if I am; Otherwise I never touch it - unless I'm thirsty."
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The key in selecting the right drink to accompany ribs is to focus on your choice of sauce because barbecue sauces are so aggressive and tend to dominate the flavor profile. I put this proposal to some experts, and below is a list of some pretty good options. Click here for websites that have good buying guides for wine, beer, and spirits.
For hot sauces
Matching drinks with hot spicey food is very difficult. The best thing for putting out a capsaicin fire is lipids. Fats. A drink with fats? Milk. Or better still, a milk shake! The next best thing to put out the fire is sweetness. The traditional choices are sweet tea, lemonade, or soft drinks, like Coke or Dr. Pepper. In any case, go low alcohol. Only flames the fire.
Brew. If the sauce is hot, I usually reach for a beer that has a noticeable sweetness and does not have a lot of hops and its attendant bitterness. That's often a standard boring old American lager. I asked my beer maven friend Marty Nachel, author of Beer Across America, Beer for Dummies, and Homebrewing for Dummies for some other recommendations. He says "Try a Munich helles, a Marzenbier/Oktoberfest, a Vienna style beer, or an English brown ale. If you appreciate dark beers, give bock, doppelbock, or Belgian dubbel a look."
Wine. You want a chilled wine with low alcohol, light body, and a hint of sweetness, say 2-4%, to help cool the fire. Try a rose, blush, a New York Riesling, or a German Kabinett. German red wines are hard to find but work great with these sauces because they are fresh and fruity and have that hint of sweetness.
Spirits. Once again, the key is to keep the alcohol down and the sweetness up. I like a minty mojito or a Kentucky Bourbon mint julep.
For sweet sauces
Brew. Go dry and hopsy. Nachel says "Consider an English Extra Special Bitter (ESB), German Schwarzbier (black beer), or an Altbier."
Wine. There are two paths to follow: (1) Go for something dry with bubbles such as French Champagne, dry American sparkling wines, or Spanish Cava, or (2) go for a big red such as a zinfandel or syrah from California or a Shiraz from Australia (shiraz and syrah are two names for the same grape).
Spirits. Whiskey on the rocks. My first choice is an All-American Bourbon or its cousin Tennessee sippin' whiskey like Jack Daniels, aged brown rum, Canadian, Scotch, or even Cognac.
For hot and sweet sauces
Brew. According to Nachel, "You need the malty sweetness to offset the heat, yet you want something drier to balance the sweetness. A good Czech Pilsner or a Dortmunder will do the job."
Wine. If the sauce is both hot and sweet, try sweet sparkling wines like Asti Spumante or Kir Royale, which is a blend of sparkling wine with creme de cassis.
Spirits. Go for a good brown whiskey on the rocks with a splash of water.
This page revised 7/14/08
