Legally Drunk

[wilsonlm]

Is it possible for someone who cooks all day become legally drunk by taste testing various italian sauces within a 8 hour time frame? And is there such a thing as a vodka sauce for a steak dish? If so, does someone have a recipe so I may know the ingredients in it. wilsonlm@co.lincoln.ne.us

[Mikeb]

No, you will not get drunk off sauces with liquor added to them. When you make a liquor infused sauce you burn off the excess alcohol. A vodka based sauce with beef? Never heard of it - vodka is has a very weak flavor, IMO it wouldn't work with the strong flavoured beef.

[Suzanne]

And here I thought you were asking about cooks who come in to work drunk! (I worked under a sous chef years ago . . . oh, never mind. )

There are wine sauces for steak -- the classic is a Bordelaise, with red wine, shallots, and bone marrow. And brandy-cream sauces. But vodka? I don't know; the closest I've ever done was add gin to a Stroganoff-type sauce (chopped shallot or onion, sliced mushrooms, beef stock, sour cream, chopped dill).

I did once know a cook who worried about rum that was baked into a cake batter. Relatively small quantity, though, and the baking would have evaporated most if not all of the alcohol. (He was in a rehab program and had to go through frequent testing.) But as mikeb says, you're not likely to get drunk from tasting sauces all day!

[dano1]

Originally Posted by Suzanne

And here I thought you were asking about cooks who come in to work drunk! (I worked under a sous chef years ago . . . oh, never mind. )

i've never even been to NY i swear...

[Pete]

Not all alcohol is burned off in the cooking process, but it is greatly reduced, add to that the fact that you usually use a pretty small amount of alcohol in a recipe and you end up with a product that has very, very little alcohol in it. Top that off with doing these tastings over a full shift (8+ hours) and there is no way anyone, even an axe toting prohibitionist, could even catch the slightest of buzzes.

[shroomgirl]

my assitant at the farmer's market is a non-drinker, when I made beet salad with sherry viniagrette he wouldn't try it because of the alcohal content...0% but whatever....
Though the bourbon raisin rolls I make have an uncooked bourbon glaze...boy can you imagine what it would take to get off on them!!!

[MarkV]

The idea that all or most of the alcohol is evaporated when reducing wine or liquor in food is largely a myth. You would actually need to simmer it for a number of hours to approach complete vaporization of the alcohol. For example, ten minutes of simmering will only eliminate about half the alcohol.

Here's a rough guideline of percentage of alcohol removed with cooking.

15 minutes 40%
30 minutes 35%
45 minutes 30%
1 hour 25%
1 1/2 hours 20%
2 hours 10%
2 1/2 hours 5%

Nevertheless, you're not going to get drunk just tasting sauces all day. If it were that easy I'd never leave the kitchen.

Mark

[redace1960]

had a teacher in college who was taking a variety of homeopathic flower remedies-extracts in alcohol-and tested positive for booze during a routine insurance urine sample. just positive. not falling down drunk. she had to go through a lot of turmoil trying to hold on to her job and her reputation because of it.

[FatChef]

Done right,all of the booze cook out of the sauces but the tasting of the wine before it goes in could do it. Vodka should stay behind the bar and away from all kitchens...trouble from all thinkable aspects. Try using a Bourbon or Whisky with either or both peppercorns and mushrooms for a good steak sauce.

[MarkV]

FatChef:

All of the alcohol will not cook out of a sauce, even after 2 1/2 hours of cooking.

Here's a link referencing the USDA laboratory data:

http://whatscookingamerica.net/Q-A/AlcoholCooking.htm

Mark

[Pete]

Even if you didn't burn off, or cook off the alcohol you would be hard pressed to get drunk from tasting it. Look at it this way, you add 2 cups of vodka to your sauce base. Most vodka is about 80proof (40% abv.). That is about 6.4oz of alcohol. You are adding that amount to what, 1 gallon of sauce? So take that 6.4oz of alcohol and divide by 144 (1gallon of sauce, 128 oz. plus the 16 ounces of vodka you just added). That gives you an approximate of 4.4% abv. or about the equivalent of a weak beer. Could you drink enough of that sauce, in a short period of time to give you a buzz? Now refer back to the table above, simmering for 15 minutes removes 40% of the alcohol so now you are down to approx. 1.76%. There is just no way you can get drunk off of that, unless you drank gallons of it in a very short time span. Of course these numbers aren't exact. There are other variables that play into it, but this simplified example shows how little alcohol remains when adding booze to a sauce.

[kuan]

Who puts alcohol in a soup and lets it simmer?

[MarkV]

Pete:

You're totally right. I wasn't arguing that there is enough alcohol left to get you drunk. Rather I was trying to debunk the myth that all the alcohol is burned off.

Nevertheless, we shoudln't jump to conclusions. We should do a study. Tonight I will drink a bottle or two of wine and then tomorrow I'll make a wine based sauce and do a comparative analysis. I'll let you know the results.



Mark

[Pete]

LOL. Good luck with the experiment!!!! Mark, I wasn't suggesting that you were arguing that point. I just wanted to take it a step further and show how much alcohol really was in that sauce

[MarkV]

It's 3:11 pm Friday afternoon.

I left work early and I have begun the experiment. I'm on my first glass.

Mark