1:25

Hello, everybody, and welcome back. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys, Mark and Francis of Stage Left and Catherine Lombardi Restaurants in downtown New Brunswick, New Jersey. Our guest today is Paul Roberts

Speaker 4 1:35

Paul is the director of wine and beverages for all of the Thomas Keller properties, including The French Laundry and Bouchon in California, Per Se in New York, and Bouchon Las Vegas. He oversees a staff of fourteen full-time sommeliers. He himself is a master sommelier, and he joins us today to talk about his experience running one of the most well-regarded high-profile beverage programs in the nation.

Speaker 3 1:55

Hey, Paul, welcome to the show.

Speaker 7 1:56

Great to be here.

Speaker 4 1:58

We've eaten at both of your places in California and in Per Se a number of times, and w-we know a few people who work for you, and we absolutely love your organization.

Speaker 7 2:06

That's really... That's very nice to hear.

Speaker 4 2:07

those who listen to the show know that I just don't, you know, blow smoke on everybody who comes on the show. But, I l-love everything you do. Um- Well, there's

Speaker 7 2:13

a few things that we do that I don't know a few thoughts.

Speaker 4 2:15

But

Speaker 7 2:15

we try to do our best.

Speaker 4 2:16

Th-those I don't know about, and I'd like you to keep it that way.

Speaker 7 2:19

Exactly. You know what I mean? M-mum's the word on those.

Speaker 4 2:21

Well, here's the deal. I, uh, you run one of the truly top-shelf wine and spirits programs in the nation, so our listeners might be surprised to hear that I'm dying to talk to you about your non-alcoholic beverage program. I mean, I think it's exciting stuff. What, w-can you talk to us about what you're doing sort of sans liquor?

Speaker 7 2:37

Sure, absolutely. I mean, the, the kind of onus or the history behind it is right at about three years ago, there was, one day at a Sunday lunch at The French Laundry before we'd even opened up Per Se or Bouchon Las Vegas, uh, there was a famous restaurant critic named David Shaw that unfortunately he's passed away, but he wrote for the LA Times for years. David is a, s- was super knowledgeable about food and wine, and he came in from a trip, uh, that he was on with his wife and his twelve-year-old son, Lucas. And David said, "Okay, Paul, Thomas is gonna cook. I want you to do all the wines, blow it out, have a great time, show us the world of wine and whatever you wanna do." I was like, "Great." And I, all of a sudden I turn and look over at Lucas, and Lucas is telling me about some of the great restaurants he's eaten in, you know, all of the great experiences he's had, and all that we have to offer him is still or sparkling water.

Speaker 5 3:22

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7 3:22

I said, "Okay, this is something where not only if you're kind of, um, possibly young, but also maybe for health reasons, you're pregnant, medication reasons you can't drink, or maybe you just don't like the taste of wine or alcohol- Mm-hmm. -we need to offer something for these people."

Speaker 3 3:34

Right. "Sir, can I get you a cup of coffee with your steak?" Yeah.

Speaker 7 3:36

Yeah, exactly. So kind of on the fly, I put together as best I could a little kind of pairing for Lucas. And then, uh, and then a couple weeks later, David Shaw called me and said, "Paul, that was great." And he really encouraged me to kind of take it to the next level. So over the last And of course, over the three years, we've constantly been trying to add to it because we realize that there's a huge market, um, for people out there that maybe for, like I said, whatever reason, they don't like wine, they don't like spirits, and they wanna have something when it comes to great food, some liquid refreshment that can make the food taste good.

Speaker 3 4:08

So- Well, traditionally, traditionally what we've done and i- when we're talking about those types of products, it's some kind of soda, which is a, a corn syrup-laden, sticky sweet thing that kind of cloys on your palate, and probably doesn't marry with most of the types of foods that we're talking about that you would serve in your place or we would serve in our place.

Speaker 7 4:26

Exactly. And what we even tried to do is that we still have a real core essence of a lot of our non-alcoholic beverage programs are sodas. But when we're looking for sodas, instead of corn syrup, we're looking for cane syrup, um, based drinks because it's not quite as aggressive, it's not quite as, um, cloying. It's a little more almost refreshing quality to it. So if we go out and look for a soda, that's one of the first questions I ask is I said, "What's the base? Is it corn syrup or is it cane syrup?"

Francis 4:48

Do you know what's funny? We, we put together a cocktail. We, uh, we just opened our second restaurant recently, and in our first restaurant, we started with a 50-seat restaurant and a 20-stool bar, and now it's 125-seat restaurant, and it's still that 20-stool bar. So it's harder to produce real cocktails there. But we bui- we built the second restaurant with cocktails in mind. Mm-hmm. And in putting our cocktail program together, we will use juices and sodas, and we'll do a lot of stuff we squeeze fresh. But, you know, sometimes you wanna use soda. And I found that any time we used a commercial soda in a cocktail, anything that was made with fructose, even if you put in a splash of it, just ruined the cocktail.

Speaker 3 5:22

High fructose corn syrup.

Speaker 4 5:23

High fructose corn syrup. Do you find that's the case, that you- Absolutely you avoid it like the plague?

Speaker 7 5:27

It is, it, it's aggressive to the point of being nasty.

Speaker 4 5:29

Yeah, and it's like a little drop of it will just- Right will throw it off, it, and it makes everything taste fake.

Speaker 7 5:34

Yeah, it makes it taste fake, and it, and like you said, it has that cloying sweetness that sometimes almost gets like this, that saccharine flavor to it.

Speaker 4 5:40

Yeah.

Speaker 7 5:40

So you have to make sure that whenever people are using any type form of sodas in cocktails or even just to drink, that it's, you know, it's, it's really that it's cane syrup based.

Speaker 5 5:49

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7 5:49

But it also then will destroy or really kind of be overly aggressive in so many other places that you may put it, if you're trying to blend it with a spirit or anything else.

Speaker 4 5:58

It's, it's exacerbated when you blend it with a spirit, I think. Yeah.

Speaker 3 6:01

We're, we're talking about all of our ingredient-driven restaurants, okay? Mm-hmm. Uh, certainly Per Se and, and French Laundry, we'll talk about those two, are ingredient-driven restaurants. You, y- you would never think about using an inferior ingredient in your food, and yet I, I find some very, very top-end restaurants are, are totally open to using inferior ingredients in their cocktails.

Speaker 7 6:25

I just think that many times, um, certain people may look at cocktails as not as important.

Speaker 3 6:30

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7 6:31

They're like, "Oh, yeah, you know, it's a cocktail. It's not that big of a deal," or, "Oh, those people drinking cocktails, they're not as important to us." And I say that, you know, they're guests in our restaurant, and they're spending their hard-earned money with us, and we need to, you know, do our best on a beverage side to make sure that they're getting the best that we can go out and find.

Speaker 3 6:46

And even from a business perspective, some people start with a, cocktail and then have a $400 bottle of wine, so.

Speaker 7 6:51

Oh, absolutely. That happens all the time, and we've really seen that. Um, we've really seen in Per Se and in Bouchon Las Vegas more so than in our other restaurants. I mean, The French Laundry, um, it cannot serve, um, spirits because of its kind of location close to a church and a school. Bouchon Yountville, you know, we always had a really good spirit program, but because it was in the middle of the wine country, wine was a central focus.

Speaker 4 7:12

But now- Paul, we're gonna pick, we're gonna pick this up in just a moment. Sure. Our guest is Paul Roberts. He's the director of wine and bre- beverages for all of Thomas Keller's restaurants, one of the most highly regarded wine programs in the country. You're listening to the Restaurant Guys,

7:22

Our guest today is Paul Roberts. He's the director of wine and beverages for all of Thomas Keller's property, The French Laundry, Bouchon, Per Se. Paul

Speaker 4 8:56

we were talking before about cocktails, but I, I, I wanna hearken back to non-alcoholic, uh, beverages before. What, now, we found that when we were doing our cocktail program, where soda's predominate in a lot of the old recipes that we tried to do, that, you know, ginger ale today, well, it doesn't have any ginger in it, and it has high-fructose corn syrup in it, most of the commercial ginger ale. Right. So we made our own. You do a similar kind of thing. You go in and sort of make your own stuff. What ki- how, what, how, what drives you, and, and, and how similar is that to creating a dish when you create a beverage?

Speaker 7 9:27

Uh, very similar. I think you're looking at the, the same components you would look in terms of making a great piece of meat or fish or soup or whatever. We look in terms of finding great ingredients and putting them together in little different ways. It's also, um, so much of what Thomas is known for is kind of his reinterpretation of a classic. So

Speaker 4 9:43

we- So give me an example of something that you do that you can tell our listeners about.

Speaker 7 9:47

Probably the most, one that we've gotten the kind of most, uh, acclaim for and the most attention for is making of our own tonic. Uh, and we do this in, uh, we started this in Per Se in New York. We have a really great bartender there who had found some old bartending texts and basically came up with an idea of how we could make our own tonic. So we got on the web, and, you know, Googled quinine, and all of a sudden, we were on a website that sells you pharmaceutical-grade quinine. So we ordered it in, and it comes in, and it's, it looks like a brick. And, you know, of course, one person said, "It looks like a brick of heroin" Well, I have no idea what that looks like, so I'm just gonna ignore that and move forward, but- But now if

Speaker 4 10:25

you ever see heroin, you'll know what it looks like.

Speaker 7 10:27

Exactly. It's like, "Is that quinine?" But you'll try

Speaker 4 10:28

and make yourself a gin and heroin.

Speaker 3 10:30

But- But there's, but there's almost no, uh, quini- there's almost no tonic in the, in the world now being made with quinine.

Speaker 7 10:36

Exactly. And most of the stuff that still is, it's been, uh, bleached so it's commercially viable.

Speaker 3 10:42

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7 10:42

Because real quinine, when you actually look at it, it, you know, it's the scrapings from the bark of a tree, so it's actually brown. So when you get our tonic like we serve at Per Se, it is not your crystal clear, um, kind of concoction that most people are used to. It actually has almost this ruddy, kind of brownish color. But when you put it with certain gins or many other flavors, it has this wonderful texture to it and also this incredible perfume, but it's not bitter on the finish.

Speaker 4 11:07

You can, you can go to Per Se in New York, and you can have a gin and tonic that tastes good and helps you fight malaria. Exactly. Our guest is Paul Roberts. He's the Director of, uh, Wine and Beverages for all the Thomas Keller properties, and we'll be talking more with him, You're listening to The Restaurant Guys, Paul Roberts is the director of wine and beverages for the French Laundry, Bouchon, Per Se, all of Thomas Keller's properties. He oversees a staff of 14 full-time sommeliers. He himself is a master sommelier, uh, and he- we're talking today about, uh, his experiences running one of the best, uh, beverage programs in the country and one of the most high-profile restaurants in the country for one of the most high-profile chefs in the country. And I think what's fascinating and what you out there, uh, have emailed us about occasionally is, is they take a great deal of care in coming up with non-alcoholic beverages. We talked before the news about one of the things to avoid if you're using a, a soda that you purchase or any ingredient that you purchase, uh, or grenadine that you purchase, is to look for something that does not contain high-fructose corn syrup. Literally one drop of that and it, and it, it'll, it'll mess you up.

Speaker 3 12:07

And it's gonna be hard to do. It's gonna be hard to find those

Speaker 4 12:09

things. And like at Stage Left, we make our own grenadine from pomegranates because we couldn't find one that we, we thought worked. But one of the things that we found was interesting, we make our own ginger ale, we make our own grenadine from pomegranates. I was amazed, we then made a Shirley Temple. You know, I'd done the whole cocktail program, and then a kid was in and ordered a Shirley Temple, and I was like, "Oh, I don't have any ginger ale." I'm like, "Well, we'll make them with the, the real ginger ale and the, and the grenadine." And it was ama- It was a compl- It was a Shirley Temple. I drank one myself. I felt ridiculous. I'm a 40-year-old guy drinking a Shirley Temple at the bar. But, but, but you know, y- you look back and then you're like, "Oh, that's what this drink was really supposed to be." Right. Um, w- so tell us and k- tell the people that are listening, because I, we've been talking conceptually. Tell them s- the kinds of drinks that you can put together that are interesting that would pair with some of the dishes that you as a sommelier, if someone said, "Listen, I don't want to drink. I'm an adult, I don't want to drink," or, "My kid doesn't want to drink," what would you make them?

Speaker 7 13:02

I think there's so many different ways that you can go. I mean, we also do a lot with teas, infusions. There's even a new thing that we're working with. There's a perfumer in, in Berkeley, in California, that she's come up with these oils and these hydrosols that we're now gonna start working with. So you could take a base water and all of a sudden add in a flavor of chamomile or lime or passion fruit or cucumber- Lime or whatever

Speaker 5 13:22

whatever

Speaker 7 13:23

to really make it work with the individual dish. But I think we tell... I try to work with all the sommeliers and say, "Guys, when you're doing a non-alcoholic beverage pairing for a guest, it's very much the same way that you should look at wine. It doesn't have to be any different." You're looking at, you know, again, the weight of the dish versus the weight of the beverage you need to put with it, and many times just match flavor with flavor. So-

Speaker 4 13:43

Give me some examples of some drinks that you serve that, you know, you've, that you create to serve with your food

Speaker 7 13:48

Well, even some that we don't create. I mean, one real classic one is that certain times of the year we'll do, um, you know, foie gras is a real kind of central component of so many of Thomas' menus. Especially if you sear foie gras and then you have something that maybe possibly has the element of a little sweetness to it, especially if you have cherries or any kind of a, kind of root flavors or, or any earthiness. Try it with a really fantastic artisanal root beer that has lots of sarsaparilla in it. And you'd think foie gras and root beer, but it actually can work because what happens is the real creaminess and the CO2 of the, uh, root beer helps to cleanse your palate and kinda move the fat along your palate and then a lot of those earthy flavors that you'll pick up. So it can be a really great match, and it's also, you don't have to have the big cloying sweetness like many people associate, you know, foie gras and Sauternes. That's usually, in our opinion, not the best match. So always make sure that when you are looking for that root beer or that soda, that again, like we've talked about, it's sugar-based, not, uh, corn syrup-based.

Speaker 4 14:41

And just for those who are listening in the Northeast, and I think it's available pretty, in most markets nationally, Boylan's Soda and Boylan's Root Beer is one of those root beers that is sugar-based. And if you wanna get really geeky and go for one of the highest-end root beers in the country, you can go for, um, Sprecher Brewing Company root beer. They're a, they're a beer brewer in Wisconsin. You can find them online. I'll put the website up. Well, I don't remember what it is, but I'll put it on our website, restaurantguysradio.com. And you can get, root beer that's made with the same quality of beer, and this stuff is, is more likely to match well with food. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 3 15:09

there are even other, things that, that I think restaurant owners, and there are a lot of restaurant people who listen to the show, uh, but restaurant owners can do and, and you can do in your own home. There are, there are products you can buy that, that are already made. I mean, there are wineries in California. There are cider places in, France that, will provide for you some really high-quality non-alcoholic ciders and- Do you

Speaker 4 15:29

guys, do

Speaker 3 15:30

you guys- non-alcoholic

Speaker 4 15:30

wines. You guys use, uh, Navarro Vineyards, I've read. Is that, is that correct for their- Yeah, Nav- grape juice?

Speaker 7 15:35

For... Navarro does a really extraordinary job with their Gewürztraminer and their Pinot Noir grape juice. Mm-hmm. And it's even something what I'm trying to do right now with, is find a couple people that will even make us grape juices in different flavors. You know, I'd love to have a full spectrum. You know, we have Cabernet. We have... So whenever somebody comes in and, okay, here's a dish that we would traditionally serve, you know, a Bordeaux or a Napa Valley Cabernet, but you're gonna have a non-alcoholic drink. Well, I've got a juice that's Cabernet flavored that can work.

Speaker 4 15:59

Mm-hmm. You know, I, I think that's very important, and I think it's interesting, how we deal with our kids in this country differently than they do in other countries. in most places when Mark and I travel or, or certainly in, when we were younger, y- you would, you would take a kid who was dining with you, and you'd have some, you know, heavily watered-down wine. So it's not about the alcohol effect of the wine, but it's talking, teaching kids to look at, flavors and how things work together and how to enjoy things as a meal. I think that's gotta have a salutary effect on kids. Uh, you know, 'cause the way we work in this country is you can't have anything until you're 21, and then you drink your face off for four years, and the object is to get as much alcohol in your system as possible, sadly for many kids. And I think that, you know, teaching kids about putting beverages as flavors together with food, I think that's healthy, don't, don't you?

Speaker 7 16:44

Absolutely, and it needs to really, I think, be done more and more. And it's not that, "Okay, here's your... You know, here, Timmy, here's your little dinner tonight, and you're gonna have a Coca-Cola." I mean, I think that's also something that people need to move beyond that, um, that it ca- it's not just milk, water, and Coca-Cola. There's so many different flavors out there, and the more and the earlier you can expose kids to it Definitely that, you know, they don't reach college, and all of a sudden they try to pickle themselves in four years, which happens to, you know, a lot of people.

Speaker 4 17:10

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 7 17:11

Myself included.

Speaker 3 17:11

Yeah. Or, or... Levi was just about to say, or five years. I

Speaker 4 17:14

have

Speaker 3 17:14

to

Speaker 7 17:14

say- Right, or five years. Me too.

Speaker 4 17:16

I have to say s- um, s- we're 40, some of our friends are still in their junior year. Um, but we, we, um, I think that we had a healthier view on alcohol when we were in college than some of our friends who used to drink just as much cheap beer as possible. And which is not to say that Mark didn't and I didn't see some excesses in our college years. But, you know, I worked in a supermarket, Mark worked in a restaurant, and I used to come back to the dorm with a hunk of provolone and a couple of good beers at the end of the night. And, you know, you're drinking good beer, you're eating good food. You drink more slowly, and you... We were drinking to appreciate what it was that we had. Yeah. And I think that if you appreciate good food, that's healthy.

Speaker 3 17:48

Yeah, you don't do, you don't do funnel- I agree you don't do funnels with Chimay.

Speaker 4 17:50

Right.

Speaker 7 17:51

Right. Exactly. I mean, it, it becomes about quality, not quantity. I mean, one of the worst things that I see is, um, you know, when you see these kids and they have the Big Gulp that, you know, is 64 ounces of pure just sugar.

Speaker 6 18:02

Yep.

Speaker 7 18:03

And it's one of the... And then they're gonna go, and they're gonna have whatever meal it is, and that's what they're using to wash it down. And I don't think that, you know, it doesn't help to stimulate your appetite. So I mean, I think it would even be better if, you know, just give your kids lemonade or something- Yeah. Or water squeezed with lemon or lime in it, so all of a sudden there is some acidity, which is gonna help, you know, to digest your food. Mm-hmm. I mean, that's why we're really, really, like I was saying earlier, with these kind of oils and these hydrosols, we're really interested in that because it can still, we just use a base of, you know, a really great bottled water or even just really pure tap water, and you could add all these flavors on. And this is something that somebody could take at home, and they say, "I really love the flavor of passion fruit." So it's all of a sudden, you know, here's a great glass of water, and put some passion fruit flavoring- And it's- And a little squeeze of lime in it, and all of a sudden you have this incredibly perfumed, exciting, kind of mouth-watering

Speaker 4 18:50

glass of

Speaker 7 18:51

water.

Speaker 4 18:51

And it's not, and it's not artificial. And- It's not artificial. It's, it's pure one of the things I like about, one of the things I like about that's so important in cocktails, and it's so important in wine, and to make non-alcoholic, 'cause we do have a lot of restaurant operators and bartenders who listen to the show. To make these non-alcoholic drinks work like a cocktail and be worth paying for and to enhance a guest's evening, you've gotta put as much effort into creating the cocktail and into presenting the cocktail. So I mean, how important is glassware to you in these non-alcoholic cocktails?

Speaker 7 19:16

Oh, glassware is, is, is huge. I mean, I always say that glassware is one of those things that if some guest is coming in, and, you know, maybe it's a four top, and two of them are drinking, you know, some very expensive wine, you don't wanna have the other two that are maybe doing a non-alcoholic pairing or, you know, a non-alcoholic cocktail, you know, just wanna put it in your, you know, standard water glass. Basic water.

Speaker 6 19:34

Mm-hmm. That is a- And you

Speaker 7 19:35

go like, like, "Here you go. You know, you're not as important to us." So many times when we'll do, you know, we'll, we'll make these drinks, it's gonna be in, you know, beautiful crystal glassware, 'cause it's all about the experience. And the, and if you can put something in, you know, a great glass, and it can really enhance the experience, go for it.

Speaker 4 19:53

I, I, I totally agree, and I think presentation is something to really worry about. As well as you should craft your non-alcoholic cocktails with the same amount of care with which you craft your alcoholic cocktails. And, and one of the things that you need to realize is that, you know, in any group of 10 people, that one person who doesn't drink, if you can make... If you become the one place in town where that person's really happy, that person's gonna try and steer that 10 top to your restaurant every single time so everybody can be happy.

Speaker 7 20:17

Oh, every single time. And again, the number of guests which we've now seen have become repeat guests at a number of our restaurants because of that reason is, you know, it, you can definitely track it. It is one of those things that they say, "Wow, these..." Because how they look at it is they say, "If, if this restaurant, these people are putting the same effort in making me this non-alcoholic drink, think about what they're doing with the food."

Speaker 4 20:36

Absolutely.

Speaker 7 20:36

Think about that, that all of a sudden they're so thoughtful that everything that they are trying to put on the plate and on the table they've really thought about. It's not like they're just throwing it out. We'll

Speaker 4 20:45

come back. We'll be talking more with Paul Roberts, uh, director of wine and beverages for all of Thomas Keller's properties in New York and California and Las Vegas in just a moment. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys. we're talking with one of the best sommeliers in America about not serving wine. We're sort of- we're talking about how great restaurants are really putting as much care into non-alcoholic beverages, and you can go get a tasting menu paired with non-alcoholic beverages that's exciting and, and, you know, the, I think on the, on the top end, the cutting edge restaurants are doing this.

Speaker 3 21:12

Well, I think it's, I think it's the same movement that we had in the vegetarian sector for exactly the same reason. Right. You know, you have one person who's a, vegetarian. You make that person extremely happy, they're gonna make their other nine friends come to your restaurant.

Speaker 4 21:24

Sure, 'cause it only takes one no vote to nix a place out of it. I mean, is that part of the idea, to get the one no vote in the large party?

Speaker 7 21:30

that's part of it, but it's also that we have all these people that are coming to our restaurant, and I s- still remember very clearly when my sister was, pregnant with twins, and she loves wine. I mean, and it was one of those things that I watched her, and she's like, "You know, I'm eating these meals," and she actually came to one of the opening parties for Per Se, and, she was, six months pregnant. And there is, it was, again, one of those things that I said, "You know, we need to make sure that whether it's one person in the, in the group or, you know, all the people in the group, that no matter what the guest is coming into this restaurant for, that we can provide them a beverage experience which is equal to what we're doing with the food."

Speaker 4 22:09

y- another interesting point when I think about w- pairing, or teaching our, uh, or our sommelier teaching our captains how to pair, non-alcoholic beverages with food, one of the frames of reference, one of the, first hooks on which we hang our, our hat when teaching young people how to, to pair wine and food is we say, you know, "Look at the cultural frame of reference with beer or wine." So, like, look, when you look at, um- pairing Loire Valley wines with, with food. Well, you think, "Well, what do they serve in the Loire Valley? What's traditional?" So you think- Right you know, Sancerre, oysters, fish. You think Rhône Valley, game, because that's what they eat there.

Speaker 7 22:41

Right.

Speaker 4 22:41

We don't have those sort of cultural benchmarks for non-alcoholic beverages, do we? Well, Coca-Cola

Speaker 3 22:46

and pizza.

Speaker 4 22:46

Co- or beer. Right. Or, or No, or Coca-Cola and a cheeseburger. Um, but Are there cultural references for, for things like that and, and do you miss them when, when trying to, to explain to people how you're putting their tasting menus together?

Speaker 7 22:58

I don't know if there's so many, so much for us cultural references, but it's just looking at kind of what flavors. So we always say, "Okay, here's a dish. Tell me what wine you would serve with the dish." And then the sommelier say, "Okay, we'd serve these three wines." I said, "Okay. Now tell me the flavors of those three wines." And they basically, basically come at, they base it down and they say, "Okay, I want three or four words of how you describe that. You know, light, medium, full, high acid, low, medium acid, low acid. Flavors, is it cherries? Is it citrus?" Whatever. Say, "Okay. Use that now as your base to go find a non-alcoholic beverage, whether it's a soda, it's something you create, it's an infusion, it's a tea." Um, so w- we start with the cultural reference of how it could work with wine because with the sommeliers, that's really what they know the best, and then you basically just strip it down from there and then distill it down to what is the core flavors and tastes that we need to look for, and that's the direction that leads us to whatever beverage that we might do with it. Uh, I don't know if there's so much cultural reference. It's also, uh, you know, I don't think there's a lot of people that would ever think, you know, foie gras and root beer or Or, you know, you know, uh, lob- lobster and, and, you know, divertimento grape juice. Um, so I think more it just comes about what is gonna taste good.

Speaker 4 24:05

Mm-hmm. And I think that, you know, we've talked about root beer and we've talked about sodas and the, the hallmark of some of these great sodas and a lot of the drinks that we're talking about is that they're not as sweet. Not only do they use sugar instead of corn syrup, but they're not... These drinks don't have to be sweet. And I think that we think if it's a soft drink, meaning it's a non-alcoholic drink, that it has to have sweetness to it. But I d- I mean, do you tend to try and go for more dry and,

Speaker 7 24:28

and savory- Ab- absolutely

Speaker 4 24:28

beverages? Yeah,

Speaker 7 24:29

I mean, the original soda that we really, we've used pretty much from day one was a company called GUS. It was... It's called GUS, stands for Grown Up Sodas.

Speaker 4 24:36

Right. Yeah.

Speaker 7 24:36

It, it was a guy who, he was an executive with PepsiCo and he said, you know, "I wanna produce something that's not quite as sweet." So Steve Hirsch and his wife found some of these organic juices in California and then made them in a very dry style. There's a new company which is, uh, just out from, I think it's from Seattle, and actually, I've just received samples of it. I've tried a couple of their products, but it's called, um, Dry, Dry Soda, and they have all these different flavors. You know, there's one that I have right now. It's, there's lemongrass, there's, you know, Meyer lemon, there's passion fruit. But we're, we're definitely looking more for the drier thing because it's also not gonna leave, um- You know, a, a big kind of sweet element on your palate. And also what they're doing is they're actually adding some natural acidity to it, whether it's from a juice that is i- there or whatever acid component it is, so it makes it a little more refreshing.

Speaker 3 25:23

Well, what's the, the, what's the cheap trick? I mean, the, the cheap trick that every soda company, that e- every mainstream soda company is doing, and frankly, every packaged, processed food they're doing that, that you taste. "Well, we'll, we'll pump up the sugar and we can, we can take out more of the... Or pump up the corn syrup, I should say, "And we'll take out some of the other ingredients, and we'll just make it really, really sweet, and you won't notice the flaws in, the rest of our product."

Speaker 7 25:47

Absolutely. I mean, it's, I think the, the, the soda world is very much like the wine world, is that, you know, sometimes in the wine world, you can cover up a lot of flaws with oak or a lot of- Mm-hmm flaws with alcohol. The sodas companies- Or sugar. Or sugar. And the soda companies are doing exactly the same, is they're trying to say, "If we can make it the most rich, the most full-bodied, the most kind of cloying, then you won't notice that, you know, it really tastes like chemicals."

Speaker 4 26:09

Hey, Paul, I want to thank you for joining us on The Restaurant Guys today. It's been a pleasure to talk with one of the best sommeliers in the world about serving, about not serving people wine in restaurants.

Speaker 3 26:18

Hey, Paul, maybe we can have you back on the show and talk about wine.

Speaker 7 26:20

That would be great. I always laugh now. I studied all those years to become a master sommelier, and now my wife calls me the soda sommelier.

Speaker 4 26:28

That's Paul Roberts. He's Director of Wine and Beverages for all of Thomas Keller's properties. He's one of the top sommeliers in the country, and it just goes to show you that when you're at a great restaurant, you care about every single part of the meal. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys,

26:40

Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I love talking about

Speaker 4 26:43

Putting together non-alcoholic beverages to go with your dinner, as we just did with one of the best sommeliers in the country.

Speaker 3 26:48

I was just about to say, one of the things that I feel really badly about is- Yeah w- we literally had one of the best sommeliers in the country- Didn't talk about wine on the show and didn't talk to him about wine for 10 seconds.

Speaker 4 26:58

Hey, man. He's blazing new trails though, and I think if you're a restaurateur out there and if you have a non... If you have a, a BYO place out there-

Speaker 3 27:04

Mm-hmm

Speaker 4 27:04

you're a fool if you don't jump on this bandwagon. And

Speaker 3 27:06

also, e- just every single restaurant owner i- in America, I want to tell you this, and I want to tell you people who are at home as well, sugar is, o- obviously, you know, pe- sugar gets kind of a bad rap, but high-fructose corn syrup is, is so bad. I mean, I remember back when we were in college, you could still buy, uh, Coca-Cola that had sugar in it if it was bottled in Atlanta, those, those little- The seven-ounce glass bottles were- those little glass bottles were sugar People used to wonder why those little glass bottles tasted better. They tasted better 'cause they were made with sugar instead of corn syrup.

Speaker 4 27:36

I just came back from Europe and I'm telling you that the Coke there tastes... I used to... I had, like, four or five Cokes, and I was with a friend of mine who we were riding motorcycles and going to restaurants in- Mm-hmm all throughout Austria, a guy named Peter Schleimer, who is the editor-in-chief of Vinaria and Vinaria Gourmet, the most important wine magazine in all of Austria, and I I kept stopping by the side of the road on motorcycles and getting a Coke. He's like, "What's with the Coke-" American boy?" I'm like, "You don't understand. European Coke is so much better than American Coke because it has sugar and not high-fructose corn syrup." That's really something to avoid like the plague. But, but I remember that as

Speaker 3 28:05

a kid. I remember that, that Coke tastes better than it does now, and, and it's not 'cause new Coke went to old Coke and Classic Coke and all that stuff.

Speaker 4 28:11

The sugar went to corn syrup. Sugar went

Speaker 3 28:12

to corn syrup- High-fructose corn syrup and made it taste worse.

Speaker 4 28:14

I got a secret weapon for you out there. It's elderflower syrup. Mm-hmm. The... It's an Austrian product. In,

28:20

In German it's Holle Bluten syrup. Um, but elderflower syrup is traditional in Austria, and you can put it in soda, you can put it in wine, you can use it as an ingredient. And I always use that as my secret ingredient when making especially non-alcoholic drinks. Ready for a great combination? I'll give you one that just came off the top of my head. Elderflower syrup, a little bit of club soda in it. Next time you do, like, a butter-poached lobster, it'll be awesome. Absolutely perfect. Well, I hope you've enjoyed the hour listening to The Restaurant Guys. I'm Francis Schaeffler. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are The Restaurant Guys,