Stinger Operation

So I couldn't tell you where Paul Liebrandt's restaurant will be or what he has in store for it (won't be Italian food), but I can tell you what I hope winds up on the dessert menu. Liebrandt made a bunch of cocktails for a Ciroc vodka demo I went to, the best being a lemon meringue stinger -- an ice cold (Pacojet-ed) vodka lemonade topped with hot Whip-it lashed egg white foam (egg white with with lemon juice, gin, and simple syrup, heated in the whipping canister to 160 degrees in a water bath). High temp meringue on the upper lip, icy tart alcohol on the tongue. Not the kind of thing you want to drink a whole martini glassful of, but a fun trick that you could recreate it at home as a final dessert palate cleanser.

As for the vodka, I didn't try it straight because, well, I drank a whole martini glassful of the delicious stinger on top of several lethal liquid nitrogen-caipirinha sorbets. I was down for the count by the time the straighter cocktails came out. I'll let you know how it goes when the bottle gets opened.