Rob Corwin and Danny Jacobs know all about the Passover spirit. Make that, spirits.
The San Francisco couple admits to an obsession with cocktails, so much so they designed a ready-to-imbibe Pesach menu they call the Sipping Seder.
How are these drinks different from all other drinks? Corwin and Jacobs took the symbolic foods of the seder plate and turned them into potent potables. One hundred proof maror? Why not?
“Passover is a slate of foods we enjoy, dinner with friends that may or may not involve a seder,” Corwin says. “We thought, ‘Let’s create new cocktails that make connections to our own past and heritage.’ ”
The Sipping Seder website (www.sippingseder.com) includes recipes for the five new cocktails, one each for maror, the shank bone, charoset and the two bitter herbs. Some include those very ingredients, others are distilled metaphors.
Keeping it real, the beitzah (egg) drink recipe includes an egg white (along with apple brandy, bourbon and Benedictine). Meanwhile, the zeroa (shank bone) recipe includes no bones, but rather bourbon, ruby port and maraschino liqueur to create a crimson concoction evocative of the shank’s sheepish origins.
“The maror was an easy one,” Corwin says. “We’re big fans of beets and horseradish. Instead of red beet, we use golden beet and garnish with red beet. The color spirals out to the cocktail.”
All together, the two have been working on the Sipping Seder concept for three years. Corwin says it first struck the couple while visiting a Beijing bar during a 2008 trip to China. Their mixologist served up a drink made from honey-flavored vodka. When they mixed it with vermouth, they had a eureka moment.
“We took a sip and it reminded Danny of charoset,” Corwin says. “Something aroused this sense memory we both appreciated as kids. Then we thought, wouldn’t it be fun if we threw a cocktail party Passover for our friends.”
From there, the two gradually began experimenting with recipes. They also tried to take into account the strict kosher rules that apply during Pesach.
They discovered most distilleries do not offer kosher-for-Passover products, because so many are made of grain. There are some exceptions: a San Francisco–based company called Distillery 209 makes a kosher gin. The maror cocktail, too, can be made kosher for Passover if a potato-based vodka is used.
“We said we should build [kashrut] in, but if we made these all kosher for Passover, there would be too much constraint,” Corwin notes. “The idea was to bring together Jewish heritage and fine cocktails.”
Corwin remembers the cocktail hour as sacrosanct during his childhood in Long Island, N.Y. “Even as a kid sipping soda I knew you saved up telling your exciting things of the day at cocktail hour,” he says.
He met his partner 13 years ago when both worked in Washington, D.C. They shared many common interests, cocktails among them, and they brought their passion west when they relocated to San Francisco in 2000.
Corwin confesses they have more stemware in their kitchen than food.
In recent years, the two enjoyed spending Passover with friends at a favorite local restaurant, where the chef prepares a special seder-inspired menu. This year they will add a Sipping Seder to the Pesach itinerary.
“We realized this thing we were building might have some more meaning to it than a few cocktails we whipped up,” Corwin says. “The process really pushed us to deepen our own understanding of Passover, and created more ties to our Jewish heritage. That was a nice surprise.”