Celebrating bees with a sweet menu
According to Jeff Cole of Barr Hill Gin, Bee’s Knees Week — a national campaign, which includes Friday’s Bee’s Knees Dinner at the the Westbrook Inn (49 S. Main St, Derry., 965-6228, thewestbrookinn.com) on Friday, Oct. 25 — began as a small, almost grass-roots promotion.
“It started out as a restaurant-only program,” Cole said, “where the restaurant would make a ‘bee’s knees’ cocktail, which is a pre-Prohibition cocktail … and they’d donate a portion of every cocktail to the Bee Cause Project, which helped raise awareness for people about pollination and the importance of it. And one of the things they did was put bee observation hives into elementary schools and children’s museums.” This is a cause that was and is important to Barr Hill, because unlike most other spirits, which are distilled from grain, Barr Hill’s gins and vodka are distilled from honey.
The Bee’s Knees event grew, and today it is one of the biggest charitable promotions in the liquor world.
“Something like 3,000 to 3,500 restaurants and retailers participate,” Cole said. “It is a big deal. It’s the largest activation, I guess you’d call it, in the spirits industry.”
How to make a bee’s knees cocktail
Combine 2 ounces very cold gin (Barr Hill would work well for this), ¾ ounce honey syrup, and ¾ ounce fresh squeezed lemon juice with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake enthusiastically for 30 seconds or so, until you hear the ice start to break up inside the shaker. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Sip with raised eyebrows and a contented smile.
Mark Saragusa, Manager of the Westbrook Inn, said the Bee’s Knees Dinner marks a turning point in the Inn’s year. “We regularly host weddings and events May through October,” he said, “and then during the fall and winter season, outside of our peak wedding season, we were introduced to [Barr Hill]. So this dinner will be unique in that we’ll bring honey tasters for each guest, but also we ask Chef Chris [Chris Viaud of Greenleaf Restaurant in Milford] to feature honey from Bar Hill in all of his courses. He will use local ingredients and set a menu that’s specific to what’s available that week. There will be an instrumental musician playing during the night. There will be a cocktail hour, then the doors open followed by a four-course menu.”
Saragusa said that one of the special aspects of this dinner is the interaction guests have with the chef. “Typically when you go to a restaurant,” he said “you’re not really seeing the chef at all. Between each course, we ask the chef to come out and explain what they did, where they sourced the ingredients, but then also the thought behind that individual plate. And so having Chris and then even Emilee [Pastry Chef Emilee Viaud] with the dessert just gives a different interaction with the guests and the chefs.”
Chef Viaud is looking forward to the Dinner. “This dinner is going to be a fun one,” he said, “where we’re incorporating honey in each course. We are making sure that we’re kind of finding creative ways to highlight the honey so that way you can taste it throughout each course.” He used the main course as an example: “We do a take on a honey-glazed ham. So we’re going to do a coriander and a pink peppercorn honey glaze mix. [We take] a pork loin from one of the local farms and roast that just gently and then brush it with the honey glaze, then reduce that down with a little bit of butter to create a pan sauce. My wife is the pastry chef at my restaurants as well, so she’ll be making a honey panna cotta.”
“I think it’s going to be a fun-filled dinner,” Chef Viaud said.
2nd Annual Bee’s Knees Dinner
When: Friday, Oct. 25, from 6 to 9 p.m.
Where: Westbrook Inn (49 S. Main St., Derry, 965-6228, thewestbrookinn.com
Tickets: $95 at Eventbrite.com.
The four-course dinner will be cooked by two-time James Beard Award-nominated Chef Chris Viauld of Greenleaf Restaurant and Pastry Chef Emilee Viaud.
Featured Photo: Chris Viaud. Courtesy photo.
