The concoction that capped the victory for Chris James in the inaugural Iron Shaker competition was the PB&J-flavored Memory Lane, which he served in Burger King Return of the Jedi souvenir glasses from his boyhood collection.
“I like to mess with the textures of different things, using more progressive methods of mixology,” he says of the Memory Lane, his response to the freestyle challenge. For example, borrowing from molecular gastronomy, he turned a cup of smooth peanut butter into a powder using three cups of tapioca maltodextrin, a flavorless starch.
With an immersion blender, a mainstay chef’s tool, James then combined the PB powder with two cups of vodka and two cups of simple syrup to produce a drink that judge Melody Kettle, of the Hot From the Kettle blog, says was lighter and smoother than it otherwise would have been, “yet still packed plenty of PB flavor.” James topped the drink with a Concord grape espuma, or foam, and rimmed the glass with crumbs of dehydrated Wonder Bread.
“He was the man to beat, no doubt,” Kettle says. “All along, his flavors and presentations blew our minds.”
Click here to read about the rest of the competition.