Welcome to Teetotaler, a new online column geared at showing you the amazing non-alcoholic drink options around the city. You’ve seen our recommendations for where to get the best brews, booze and bubbly around town. Now it’s time to show you that you don’t have to get tipsy to taste the best this city has to offer. Here’s to the teetotalers in all of us. Served in a pint glass with a thick, foamy head, at first glance you’d think it’s a beer. Maybe a stout – a cloudy, full, heavy milk stout. But as soon as you get a whiff of that sarsaparilla-filled aroma, it’s obvious that this is something much different.
The root beer made in-house by Monarch Restaurant and Wine Bar’s executive chef Josh Galliano is a perfect alternative to an ice cold beer, though its flavor and aroma is equally intoxicating. Heavy on the spice (cinnamon, ginger, anise), zests of orange and licorice root make this soda reminiscent of an unfiltered apple cider that’s been both carbonated and fermented. Vanilla bean, cane syrup and turbinado sugar round out the drink’s spiciness, without making it overly sweet. It’s cloudy but not thick, surprisingly crisp and light, and satisfyingly refreshing.
“I use sarsaparilla because birch bark is too tannic [and] sassafras is considered illegal/carcinogenic,” Galliano said. “Sarsaparilla has a rounded, medicinal and herbaceous flavor. In a lot of old recipes, they used tinctures, different extracts and hard-to-find dried roots. I adapted with the ingredients I could get.”
Galliano has been fermenting non-alcoholic brew for a few years now. So when Monarch “decided to go Southern,” reopening this summer with a brand new Southern bistro menu that celebrated Galliano’s New Olreans roots, he figured it was time to begin kegging these tasty drinks. Why root beer? Because “rootbeer’s f–king tasty,” he stated simply.
Just $3 will buy you a frosty pint of this sweet-spicy concoction to sip while you nosh on the crawfish bread, boudin balls and praline bacon on the new menu. Those looking for something sweet after their meal, meanwhile, can also order a good old-fashioned root beer float – for just $5, the tasty dessert comes complete with homemade vanilla bean ice cream.
This article appears in Sep 1-30, 2010.