Curtis Stone wants you to think differently about sparkling water.
Bake with it, cook with it, make ice with it…the uses are more varied than you know, says the Los Angeles-based, Michelin-starred chef, restaurateur, and judge of Crime Scene Kitchen. Stone has recently partnered up with Waterloo Sparkling Water.
“I love sparkling water – I just do,” Stone says. “I love the way it tastes, I love the way it feels on your tongue, but the reason I got excited about Waterloo is how seriously they take flavor.”
Sparkling water, Stone says, is another tool in both the bartender and chef’s arsenal. “It’s just another something you have to play with,” he says.
When you create a cocktail, Stone says, you start with one ingredient and then you add to it. “If you’re using Waterloo’s Ginger Citrus Twist, you’ve got a contrast in those flavors,” he says. “You have a brightness and a little bit of spice with the ginger, but you’ve also got that bright acidity with the citrus. So, then you ask, what other flavors do you want with that. I’m a big believer of tasting things to see what works.”
With the citrus and the ginger, Stone immediately thought of tequila. The sparkling water would go quite well in a ranch water cocktail, but it also would work with vodka or gin, he says.
“Then, you could take it a step further and use some finger limes, which we get out of Australia,” he says. “They look like limes shaped like fingers, and there’s a sense of caviar when it pops in your mouth. You could mix something like that in, but I think lime leaf and maybe even lemongrass would be interesting. Then, when you stir you cocktail together, you could use the lemongrass.”
For the Orange Vanilla flavor, Stone advises using a warmer, heavier spirit. “When I think of orange and vanilla, it’s a warm flavor combination, and I think of bourbon and rum and whiskey and some of those richer, alcohol bases,” he says. “Rum, especially dark rums, would work really well. and I think you’d pick up on the vanilla tones. Then, maybe you’d need someting in there like a squeeze of lime to contrast, to break through that sweetness.”
