Posts Tagged ‘Guide’

The Serious Eats Guide to Bourbon

Posted on March 29th, 2012 • Filed under Taste • No Comments

From Drinks

After wading in barrels of the Scotch and Irish drams, it’s time to turn our attention homeward, to that quintessential American spirit: good old bourbon whiskey. We’ll look today at what makes bourbon unique, how it’s made, and how it came to be.

What Is Bourbon?

In brief, bourbon is a whiskey, made predominantly from corn and aged in charred oak barrels. But if you’ve been reading this column for a while, you know that I’ll probably hit you with a formal, legal definition of bourbon that complicates things. Indeed, here it is.

According to the United States government, bourbon sold in the United States must meet these requirements:

• Made from a grain mixture that is at least 51% corn. (Other grains in the mix may include wheat, rye, malted rye, and malted barley, in any combination.)
• Aged in new charred-oak barrels.
• Distilled to no more than 160 proof, or 80% alcohol by volume (ABV). In practice, most bourbon is distilled out at a lower proof than this.
• Entered into the barrel for aging at a proof no higher than 125 (62.5% ABV).
• Bottled at no less than 80 proof (40% ABV).

Bourbon must be aged, but there are no specific requirements as to time. (“But wait! Doesn’t bourbon have to be at least two years old?!” Read on.)

When we looked at the legal regulations about the manufacture of Scotch and Irish whiskies, we saw some language in them about the origins of the enzymes and yeasts used in fermentation. Bourbon has no such restrictions, so bourbon makers may use added enzymes to break down the grain mash.

We’ve already talked a lot about barrel aging in this space, but it’s worth mentioning again. Bourbon requires the use of new, charred-oak barrels. This allows the barrel to impart more of its own flavors of oak, caramel, and vanilla into the whiskey than you get with Scotch, which generally uses second-hand barrels. We’ll talk more about aging in a minute.

What Is Straight Bourbon?

Look at most bottles of bourbon on the market, and you’ll see the term “Straight Bourbon” indicated prominently on the label. Straight bourbon must meet all the requirements of bourbon, but it has a couple of extra requirements that regular bourbon doesn’t have:

• Straight bourbon must be aged at least two years. If it is aged less than four years, the bottle must carry an age statement. The corollary to this is, if a bourbon carries no age statement, it’s aged at least four years.
• Straight bourbon may contain no added colorings, flavorings, or additional spirits.
• If a straight bourbon carries an age statement, it carries the age of the youngest whiskey in the bottle.

The last bullet point implies that straight bourbon may be a mixture of bourbons (all of them straight), but there’s a caveat: they all must be produced in the same state. “Straight bourbon” does not imply a single-barrel bourbon, or even a mix of bourbons all from the same distillery. In other words, a bourbon maker can purchase straight bourbons from other distilleries and mix them to create a new straight bourbon.

Bourbon Production

Bourbon starts with a “mash bill,” a blend of grains that form the basis of the bourbon. Bourbon’s mash bill, as noted above, must be at least 51% corn, although in practice, bourbons are made from 60–86% corn. The other grains used in bourbon are rye, wheat, and barley. Most distillers use only two of those three—either rye and barley, or wheat and barley.

As an aside, bourbon that uses wheat instead of rye is known as a wheated bourbon, and it tends to be softer and sweeter than a bourbon made with rye. Maker’s Mark is the best known example (and y’all know a bit about Maker’s already), but others include W.L. Weller and Old Fitzgerald. I doubt I’m the only one who started drinking bourbon by drinking wheaters, before moving on to more rye-forward bottlings. (A whiskey such as Bernheim Wheat Whiskey, incidentally, is a different beast; Bernheim is 51% wheat, with the remaining grains a mix of corn and barley. In other words, it ain’t bourbon.)

Back to bourbon production. Ground-up grains are mixed with water, and then in most bourbons, a bit of mash from a previous distillation is added, to form a sour mash. (More on this in a bit.) New yeast is added, and the mixture is then fermented, before being moved off to a column still, also known as a continuous still or a Coffey still. Bourbon by law can’t be distilled higher than 160 proof (80% ABV) but in practice, most bourbon is distilled out to between 130 and 160 proof (65–80% ABV).

Bourbon is generally double-distilled. The second pass may go through a pot still or another column still, depending on the whiskey maker.

The spirit that comes off the still is clear. Bourbon gains its color and much of its flavor from barrel aging. By law, bourbon ages in new charred-oak barrels. The charred wood provides caramelized sugars that add flavor to the whiskey.

When whiskey is aged in oak barrels, a number of variables influence the final character of the spirit. Climate plays a major role; as temperatures increase, whiskey expands, and the staves of the oak barrels absorb some of that volume; cold weather causes whiskey to contract back out of the staves. This movement of whiskey into and out of the staves gives whiskey tannins, an amber color, and a woody flavor. In warmer years, the whiskey will spend more time absorbed into the staves and pick up more tannins, color, and oak flavor; bourbon therefore ages faster in warmer years.

A barrel’s location in its aging warehouse also influences how quickly the whiskey ages. Because hot air rises, temperatures on the top floor are generally higher than those below. To control for this variable, many distilleries rotate its barrels from higher floors to lower during aging.

What Is Sour Mash?

In addition to “Straight Bourbon,” another term you’ll see on some bourbon labels is “Sour Mash.” (Jack Daniels, though not a bourbon, also uses sour mash, so this part of the discussion applies to ol’ Jack as well.)

Simply put, the sour-mash process involves taking a small amount from a batch of previously used mash and adding it to a fresh batch. This makes the mash taste a bit sour, hence the name, but it doesn’t make the resulting whiskey taste sour.

The advantages of this process are twofold, and they’re all about the yeast. First, the sour-mash process creates a consistent environment for yeast from batch to batch, which means each new batch of whiskey is consistent with the last. This is one reason your favorite bourbon tastes the same from bottle to bottle. It also lowers the pH of the batch, which helps the yeasts in the batch ferment the mash more efficiently, boosting a higher yield of alcohol.

A few distilleries (Woodford Reserve, for example) have experimented with a similar process, called sweet mash. The difference here is that only fresh yeast is added to the mash; no “sour” yeasts are added from a previous batch. This may seem a minor difference, but the higher pH in the mash means that the mash ferments differently than in a sour mash, creating congeners you don’t find in sour mash, meaning the resulting whiskey simply tastes different than a sour mash bourbon. Woodford’s sweet mash, for example, is said to have more berry flavors than its sour-mash cousin.

All Bourbon Comes from Kentucky, Right?

It’s a common myth that all bourbon is from Kentucky, but this isn’t true. By U.S. law, all bourbon must be made in the United States. Otherwise, all bets are off. Now, 95% of bourbon on the market today happens to be from Kentucky, it’s true. Other bourbon makers are located in Brooklyn, upstate New York, Massachusetts, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Iowa, and I’m sure I’ve missed some.

Jack Daniels, by the way, is Tennessee whiskey. It is not a bourbon, but you knew that, right? More on Tennessee whiskey in a future piece.

But Why Is Kentucky Such a Great Place for Bourbon Making?

Kentucky is central to bourbon distillation for three main reasons. The first is corn, which is abundant in Kentucky and its surrounding states. The second is the limestone on which Kentucky is built; water that arises through limestone is iron free. Iron is bad for whiskey; it discolors the product (like a nail left in water) and introduces off flavors. Finally, the climate: Kentucky’s hot summers and cold winters are ideal for efficient aging of bourbon.

A Brief History of Bourbon

I must be brief in detailing bourbon’s long history; there’s simply not space here to thoroughly detail the entire story of bourbon. Moreover, bourbon’s earliest days are lost to the fogs of history, so it’s impossible to present a truly comprehensive history.

Bourbon has its roots in the migration of settlers west from the original colonies, in the 18th and 19th centuries. The migrants included Scots-Irish descendants of the men who invented Scotch and Irish whiskies, but they also included other English, Welsh, German, and French settlers.

You may have heard that these migrants moved west in response to the taxation that later gave rise to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1789. This is partly true, but it’s an oversimplification. Kentucky, at any rate, attracted Colonial explorers and settlers starting in 1750, nearly 40 years earlier than the Hooch Uprising. The reality was, the population of the colonies was growing so quickly, there was a vital need for western expansion. The whiskey-making settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee was inevitable, regardless of any political uprisings that may have happened.

Bourbon’s antecedent in Colonial America was rye whiskey, made by gentleman farmers such as Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, but also distilled in great quantities by farmers throughout the central colonies. Rye suits the climate and soil of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, and the grain thrives in those areas. Each region gave birth to specific styles of rye whiskey, but more on that in a later post.

The Godfather of Bourbon?

No one knows who “invented” bourbon, although as I’m about to explain, it could have been just about anyone, or even multiple people at approximately the same time.

Bourbon, at its most basic definition, is a whiskey made mostly of corn and aged in charred oak barrels. Kentucky’s settlers already knew how to distill. The practice was used for both rum and rye in the colonies, and settlers brought the technology with them into Kentucky. The practice of aging spirits in charred oak was also well known in the 19th century, when bourbon first arose, so using charred barrels was a logical choice. Using corn was also logical; it was simply the most abundant grain in the area, and farmers found it more efficient and lucrative to haul whiskey to market rather than raw corn. So if you have knowledge of distillation and aging, and you have ample supplies of raw grain, bourbon whiskey almost invents itself. Who created bourbon? It really could have been anyone.

Various Kentucky families claim their patriarchs were the first to make whiskey in Kentucky. Claims date back to as early as 1776, but that may just be patriotism talking. We have historical evidence which establishes that the Reverend Elijah Craig was distilling whiskey by 1789, but it seems evident that he was working in a region where whiskey distillation was already common practice. The whiskey writer Charles Cowdery even argues that whiskey was made in the area that became Kentucky as early as 1774.

Was Elijah Craig the first person to put corn whiskey into a charred barrel? Legend (and clever marketing) would tell you this is so, but there’s simply not enough historical proof to support the claim.

Bourbon and Farming

Prior to becoming a commercial and industrial product, bourbon was originally an agricultural one. The first bourbons were made by farmer-distillers, using pot stills of anywhere from 20 gallons to 200 gallons in size. These farmers made whiskey in fall and winter after their crops were in, after the corn was dry enough to grind and make whiskey from.

Farmers made bourbon for their own consumption and also to sell; grain was hard to transport and even harder to market, so it was only practical to sell whiskey instead. They would sell it to grocers who in turn would then sell it, by the barrel, to bars and saloons. Whiskey was also loaded onto flatboats, at a port on the Ohio River now called Maysville, Kentucky, and shipped down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to New Orleans.

Bourbon sales were highly profitable for farmers throughout the 19th century. The raw ingredients (corn, other grains, and water) were extremely inexpensive, of course, but the final product sold for a premium.

Prior to Prohibition, there were 2,000 distilleries just in Kentucky alone. Today? About ten.

Why the Name “Bourbon”?

The simplest explanation for the name “bourbon” is that it’s named for the Kentucky county in which it was invented, Bourbon County. That explanation also happens to be wrong, because “bourbon” in Kentucky predates the establishment of Bourbon County.

Early settlers used French place names in Kentucky as a means of gratitude toward the French for their support during the American Revolution, so this explains why bourbon is named indirectly for a French royal house.

In its early days, the land we now call Kentucky was part of Virginia, and it was divided, subdivided, and divvied up again several times into smaller and smaller counties. Today’s Bourbon County, Kentucky, is small, but when Bourbon County, Virginia, was established in 1785, it was a huge region, encompassing dozens of today’s counties. As we’ve seen, whiskey production was already in full swing by then, with dozens of farmer-distillers pumping it out by the gallons.

I mentioned earlier that whiskey was loaded onto flatboats at the port at a town now called Maysville, Kentucky. The port already existed when Bourbon County was established around it. Whiskey was transported to the port from throughout the entire region, before being loaded onto flatboats.

The entire region of the vast, original Bourbon County came to be called “Old Bourbon,” and any whiskey shipped from the port came to be known as “Old Bourbon Whiskey,” no matter what its place of origin.

Bourbon’s Fall and Rise

Bourbon wasn’t initially sold the way we think of it today. You wouldn’t go to a liquor store and get a bottle. Bottling didn’t become standard until 1890s. The main package was the barrel, and if you wanted bourbon at home, you’d go to your local saloon and ask the barkeeper to fill a flask or bottle for you from a barrel he kept behind the bar. It’s similar to growlers at some of today’s brewpubs.

The 20th century dealt two blows to the bourbon industry. First, obviously, was Prohibition. Most small distilleries closed down permanently. Those that survived did so only via a loophole in the law that allowed doctors to prescribe whiskey for medicinal purposes. Over six million whiskey prescriptions were written during the years of Prohibition, which meant a lot of people were “sick.”

The second hit on bourbon came during the second World War, when the Federal government called on them to stop producing liquor and instead produce fuel alcohol and penicillin (a byproduct of fermentation).

In general, the story of the first eight decades of the 20th century is one of decline for bourbon whiskey. By the 1970s, most younger adults thought of brown spirits as something their parents and grandparents drank. Young people wanted lighter and trendier spirits, such as vodka and tequila. They also developed a taste, of course, for non-alcoholic drugs.

What brought bourbon back? Wine and Scotch, ironically. Wine’s star shone brightly in the 1970s, as marketers found ways to encourage customers to host wine tastings, serve wine dinners, and buy books and magazines about wine. Scotch marketers took a hint from wine’s success and started holding scotch tastings and whisky dinners.

Bourbon Today

[Photograph: Kentucky Bourbon Trail]

Bourbon has rebounded impressively from its 1970s nadir. In 2010, the American whiskey industry (which includes bourbon and Tennessee whiskey) sold 15.4 million cases of whiskey, accounting for $1.9 billion in revenue—during the worst economic conditions since the Great Depression. Export sales are higher than ever, up 286% just in France. Bourbon marketers are finding an enormous potential in China and India, and they’re exploring new markets elsewhere in Asia and in Africa.

The money flooding the market has led to plant expansions at Wild Turkey, Jim Beam, and Maker’s Mark, just to name three. Four Roses, Buffalo Trace, and Woodford Reserve have expanded and updated their visitor centers. Tourism in Kentucky is booming, with nearly 2 million people visiting the Kentucky Bourbon Trail in the last five years.

For geeks like me who love American whiskey, this is an exciting time; the industry is full of innovation. I mentioned in an earlier post the work that Buffalo Trace is doing, experimenting with the variables that make a great bourbon. Brands such as Bulleit and Knob Creek are expanding into rye production. Maker’s Mark introduced its Maker’s 46 offshoot a couple of years ago, experimenting with a new aging technique that adds unique flavors to the bourbon.

Every major brand has single-barrel, small-batch, and cask-strength variations on the market, often at superpremium prices. On the other hand, today’s bourbon makers are so efficient that they can sell a great product at relatively low prices, as anyone who buys Evan Williams by the handle will attest.

The Elephant in the Room: GMO Corn

I can’t leave this topic, though, without sounding what may be a bit of a sour note. Earlier this year, the web magazine Grist published an article about the use of genetically modified corn in bourbon production.

Essentially, nearly every distillery uses GMO corn to make bourbon. The distilleries are in a bind here: on the one hand, European consumers demand the use of non-GMO ingredients; on the other, non-GMO farming in this country is dwindling fast, vastly reducing the amount of non-GMO corn available on the market.

If you’re concerned about the use of GMO products in your whiskey, the Grist article offers two organic, non-GMO choices, and to my palate at least, both are excellent-tasting options: Four Roses and Wild Turkey. But even the master distillers at those brands express pessimism that they’ll be able to hew to the non-GMO standard in the future.

About the author: Michael Dietsch approaches life with a hefty dash of bitters. He is a proud new father, boozologist, and cocktail curmudgeon. He lives in Providence. You can follow him on twitter at @dietsch.

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Feature: The Vita game guide: impressions of 14 launch titles

Posted on February 16th, 2012 • Filed under Learn • No Comments

Sony is launching the Vita with one of the largest launch lineups in console history—25 day one titles running the gamut across genres and styles. It’s a lineup dominated by ports and sequels of varying quality, as well as a few wholly original gems (and clunkers). After spending a good deal of time with many of those launch titles over the past few week and a half, I thought I’d share my impressions of which ones are actually worth checking out.

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Read the original post on Ars Technica

 

Gift Guide: Food-Related Art Prints

Posted on December 16th, 2011 • Filed under Taste • No Comments

VIEW SLIDESHOW: Gift Guide: Food-Related Art Prints

Since you can’t decorate your walls with real food (well, technically you can, but we don’t recommend it), decorate your walls with food-related art. Here are some of our favorite prints.

More holiday gift guides, right this way »

About the author: Robyn Lee is the editor of A Hamburger Today and takes many of the photos for Serious Eats. She’ll also doodle cute stuff when necessary. Read more from Robyn at her personal food blog, The Girl Who Ate Everything.

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The Serious Eats Guide to Taco Styles

Posted on July 13th, 2011 • Filed under Taste • No Comments

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

I’m gonna say a word. Your job is to describe the first image that comes into your head. Ready?

TACO.

What’d it look like? Hard yellow shell stuffed with a moist ground meat filling with shredded lettuce and cheese? Or maybe some battered and fried fish stuffed into a soft corn tortilla with a smear of chipotle mayonnaise and a cabbage slaw. Or how about braised goat’s head with a red hot salsa verde?

Tacos come in all shapes, sizes, colors, makes, and models, and you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn’t like at least some form of meat-shoved-in-thin-flatbread. Here’s a quick guide to the most common types of tacos around. I’m sure we’ve missed a few, so feel free to chime in with anything you think should be included!

SOFT TACOS

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

There are many regional variations, but the oldest, most widely consumed forms are made with soft white corn tortillas griddled on a comal until lightly charred or steamed until soft. They’re small (usually no more than three or four inches across), and are eaten as a street snack.

Fillings can be anything from the battered and deep-fried fish of Baja to grasshopper-stuffed tacos de chapulines of Oaxaca, but they generally fall into one of three categories: griddled/spit-roasted meats, fried meats, or braised meats. Most restaurants or carts specialize in one category. The meaty fillings are finely chopped into tiny pieces on a block of wood known as a tronco with a sharp cleaver before serving. Traditionally, Mexican tacos come very simply adorned with diced onions and chopped cilantro, with lime wedges, pickled or grilled jalapeños, radishes, and a choice of salsas for the customer to add themselves. Of course, nowadays, fillings and condiments run a wide gamut. We’ll get into that.

Tacos de Asador (Griddled Fillings)

Beef cooked on a griddle [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Griddled fillings include meats cooked using dry heat methods like frying on a flat comal or roasting on a spit. The most common ones you’ll find are carne aside (grilled steak), chorizo (a sour fresh Mexican sausage), pollo (chicken), or tripita (grilled tripe). Often served on a double stack of tortillas, guacamole is a common addition, particularly to strong-flavored grilled meats like tripe or stomach.

Tacos de Cazo (Fried Fillings)

Our No-Waste Carnitas recipe [Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Fried fillings are generally slow-cooked in a simmering pot of lard before being crisped up on a hot comal. In that way, it’s analogous to French-style confit. The most popular of this style of cooking is carnitas, made by slow-cooking pork shoulder in lard until meltingly tender. Other common cuts are tripa (pork tripe), buche (pig’s throat), and suadero (beef cuts, usually from the brisket).

Tacos de Cazuela (Braised or Simmered Fillings)

Braised goat head tacos [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

These tacos include head meats like cabeza (mixed face meat), segos (braised brains), tromp (braised lips), and cachet (cheeks). Whole sheep or goat wrapped in maguey leaves are cooked in large steamers into barbacoa, then the meat is shredded and mixed with the juices that drip out while it cooks before being piled back into a double stack of tortillas.

SALSAS

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

There’s no doubt that the quality of the tortilla and the filing are what define a good or bad taco, but the best taco in the world can be either brought down or elevated by the quality of its salsa (which, by the way, is Spanish for “sauce”). There are four common types of salsa typical to taquerias or carts (though obviously, there are many more variations on these depending on where you go):

Salsa Roja

A deep red salsa made with cooked dried chili peppers and aromatics. It’s generally smoky, complex, and hot. It may or may not contain tomatoes.

Avocado-based salsa

A loose puree of avocado, lime, and aromatics, it’s similar in flavor to guacamole, but far thinner, with a pourable consistency.

Salsa Casera (pico de gallo)

A watermelon-based Pico de Gallo [Photograph: Homesick Texan]

Fresh salsa made from raw chopped tomatoes, onion, chili peppers, and cilantro, though other vegetables and fruits can sometimes be used. It’s often called pico de gallo (the beak of the rooster), and represents the three colors of the Mexican flag (red, white, and green).

Salsa Verde

[Photograph: Michael Natkin]

Green salsa made from tomatillos, chilis, and cilantro. Bright, tart, and fresh tasting, it can range from mildly hot to downright fiery

And if you branch out to Fast Food or Taco Kit-style tacos, you’ll also find…

“Taco Sauce”

[Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

This smooth, tomato-based sauce vaguely resembles watered down ketchup flavored with chili powder and perhaps a bit of cumin with heat levels ranging from “mild” to “fire,” which when adapted to the Mexican scale translate as “mild” to “sort of mild.” Even the hottest won’t have any but the most light-tongued reaching for the water.

Jarred Salsas

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Made from cooked tomatoes and tomato purée, this is the stuff you’ll find in the jars sold next to the tortilla chips. While they aren’t the best choice for real tacos, they can make a great addition to kit-style tacos. Check out our taste test.

At some fast food taquerias, they use…

Weaponized Salsa Dispensers

[Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

These are caulk gun-like handheld devices designed to dispense a precise amount of sour cream, guacamole, or salsa onto an unwitting taco, burrito, or gordita.

SPECIALTY SOFT TACOS

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

These are some of the most popular regional variations on the soft taco theme that you’ll find in Mexico and beyond.

Fish Tacos

Fish tacos with guacamole. [Photograph: Robyn Lee]

Originally from Baja, the long peninsula off the Northwest coast of Mexico, fish tacos have been popular in Southern California for a long time and are finding greater popularity on these days on both coasts and everywhere in between (even the Cheesecake Factory has’em on the menu). Made with fresh fish either grilled or battered and deep fried, it comes served on a soft corn tortilla with a shredded cabbage slaw and a cream, mayonnaise, or sour cream-based dressing, often flavored with chipotle (smoked jalapeños), lime, or cilantro.

Shrimp Tacos

[Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

Remove the fried fish from a fish taco and replace it with grilled or fried shrimp and you’ve got shrimp tacos, also from Baja.

Tacos al Pastor or Tacos de Adobada

[Photographs: Wikimedia Commons]

Meats cooked on vertical rotisseries. Very similar to Greek gyros or Middle Eastern shawarma, thin slices of marinated meats (like pork seasoned with adobo, for instance) are layered on top of each other on a long skewer, cooked via radiation in a vertical broiler, and sliced off in thin shreds as needed. You’ll often find a pineapple, tomato, or onion stuck on the top of the stack to help flavor the meat as its juices drip down over the layers.

Tacos al Carbón

Grilled skirt steak. [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

A specialty of Sonora, these tacos generally feature fast-cooking meats, most commonly thinly sliced beef steak, though stands specializing in tacos al carbón will often also serve chorizo, chicken, and/or organ meats like tripe and intestine. The meat is grilled on grates set over live coals, which impart a distinct smokiness and char them more deeply than those seared on a griddle. They’re often accompanied by grilled green onions, sliced cucumbers, and radish.

Tacos de Canasta

Rarely found outside of Mexico, these tacos are made by stuffing corn tortillas with fillings like chorizo, potatoes, pork skin, or beans, then placed immediately inside a container lined with a cloth. The cloth is folded over the trap steam, and the tacos are then carried around until sold or eaten. In this manner, they get steamed as they sit, turning the tortilla extremely soft and fragile. So elusive are they that we couldn’t even track down a photo of them in the wild.

Bug-Stuffed Tacos

[Photographs: Wikimedia Commons]

Ok, so they may not be for everyone, and they’re tough to find in the U.S., but tacos stuffed with fried chapulines (grasshoppers) can be quite tasty. They’re crunchy and nutty and really quite delicious—as long as you close your eyes.

Vegetarian Tacos

Huitlacoche tacos. [Photographs: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Tacos are generally a meaty snack, but there are a number of traditional vegetarian options. Tacos de Papa are filled with creamy potatoes, while squash blossoms, rajas (roasted pepper strips) or even nopales (cooked cactus paddle) are not uncommon. Perhaps the most famous (and one of the rarest) is stuffed with huitlacoche: kernels of corn that have been infected by corn smut, a fungus that turns them black. Often referred to as “Mexican Truffles,” huitlacoche has an almost cheesy, earthy aroma that’s truly fantastic inside a hot corn tortilla.

Mission-Style Tacos

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

The style of taco served in San Francisco’s Mission district, where burritos are really king. Along with meat, they come adorned with more burrito-friendly fillings, like cooked beans, refried beans, cheese, lettuce, and a variety of salsas. The archetypical mission-style taco comes from La Taqueria, on Mission Street.

Breakfast Tacos

[Photograph: Carey Jones]

With the popularization of Tex-Mex restaurants came a need for something other than Huevos Rancheros for breakfast. Breakfast tacos are a quick and easy option in the morning, consisting of a tortilla (often flour) filled with meat, eggs, and cheese. They’re particularly popular in Texas, where you’ll find everything from eggs and cheese to potatoes, bacon, and chorizo, like in the Suicide Taco at Rosie’s Tamale House in Bee Cave.

Food Truck Fusion Tacos

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

With their simple mode of production and eminent snackability, tacos and food trucks naturally go hand in hand. While many rolling restaurants stick to the basics, serving either griddled or braised fillings, modern trucks veer from the creative to the just plain weird. The Kogi Barbecue Truck from L.A. can be attributed with popularizing this style, with their tasty, kimchi-stuffed concoctions. Note: These tacos don’t actually have to come from a truck.

Fancy-Pants Tacos

Tacos from Empellón in New York. [Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

This is what happens when renowned chefs get their hands on tacos. Like most foods, they range from excellent—try the chicken and green chorizo version from Alex Stupak’s hot new Empellón (our review here) or the awesome smoked and confited beef tongue in the Benny Lengua Taco at Ken Oringer’s La Verdad in Boston—to the downright silly (like the raw Spicy Tuna Tartar Tacos at Todd English’s Bonfire). What they all share in common is a particular chef’s attempt to add a twist and upgrade to the classic.

Fancy-pants tacos can occasionally end up in the dreaded realm of Tacos Gringos (see next section)

Tacos Gringos (a.k.a. Yuppie Tacos)

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Imagine an alien flying over the earth observing us through a telescope and taking notes so they can recreate an earth exhibit back on their home planet. Now, they may well get a bunch of things right, and at first glance, their replica of the earth might fool some people. But get down to the details, and the façade falls short. That’s what gringo tacos are. Tacos that bear a resemblance to the Mexican original soft corn taco, but lose something (or several things) vital in preparation.

This often manifests itself in the following ways:

• Badly heated or stale tortillas that either get saturated with juice and fail, or crumble when you try and fold them.
• A vain attempt to up-scale-ify the meat. This can mean, for instance, using higher quality beef cooked medium rare and sliced into strips (thus making them impossible to consume without sliding out of the tortilla). Marked by high quality but low flavor.
• Odd fillings and salsas that compete rather than complement the main filling. The biggest offenders include corn and black bean relishes, or the dreaded mango salsa. Horrors!
• Soy-based vegan fillings. That’s all there is to say about that.

For an example of tacos that offend on nearly all of these fronts, head to Papalote Mexican Grill in San Francisco’s Mission District. Or better yet, don’t.

Chinese Soft Tacos

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

I can’t verify the following story, but it seems to make sense to me. Starting about ten years ago, Chinese immigrants to New York who planned on opening Chinese restaurants found the takeout Chinese restaurant market to be saturated. Rather than throwing in the towel, they instead opted to open cheap, fast, taco shops around the concept of tortillas cooked fresh to order. Hand over a couple bucks and the cook deposits a small ball of flour-based dough into a machine that rolls and grills the tortilla, which is then stuffed with toppings, usually limited to steak, chicken, or black beans. They often serve other NY Chinese Takeout staples like fried chicken with duck sauce and french fries.

Depending on the quality of the fillings, these can range from excellent to stomach-churning. Look for restaurants that look suspiciously like Chinese takeout joints with names like “Taco Mex” or “Fresh Mex” or “Tortilla Max.” The combination of “taco” or “tortilla” in the name along with a Chinese cashier is a dead giveaway.

Indian Tacos

[Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

Indian tacos, sometimes called Navajo tacos, are a regional specialty, found in the American West and Midwest. They swap the tortilla for frybread, yeast-leavened disks of dough fried in lard or oil until puffy. Though you can find them at restaurants like Tim’s Drive Inn in Oklahoma City (review here), they are more commonly served at pow-wows and Native American festivals.

Fast Food Soft Tacos

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

In the realm of soft tacos, fast food tacos are usually made with flour tortillas instead of corn, and rather than being served flat or rolled up, they’re folded in half, mimicking the U-shape of a hard-shell crisp taco. Filling options generally include small bits of steak or chicken, a seasoned ground beef mixture, or refried beans, and they come topped with diced tomatoes, shredded iceberg lettuce, shredded yellow cheese, and sour cream, with some sort of sauce served on the side.

Taco Bell’s Cantina-style tacos, a recent (and now retired) limited-time offering, were more similar to traditional Mexican tacos, with soft corn tortillas and a garnish of onions and cilantro.

TLO’s (Taco-like-objects)

[Photograph: Robyn Lee]

These are taco-based products that involve wrapping ingredients in soft flour tortillas. That’s about all the similarity they have to real tacos. The McDonald’s Snack Wraps is probably the most notable form of TLO, though Taco bell also serves several TLO’s, like their Gorditas (not to be confused with the true deep-fried gorditas of Mexico) and their Chalupas. I strongly believe that this category only exists so that it can be avoided.

HARD TACOS

[Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

Here are some of the more common hard-shell taco varieties you’ll see.

Tacos Fritas

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Probably the closest thing you’ll find to a “traditional” hard taco. The fillings tend to be similar to a soft tacos, but the shells (usually made of corn flour) are fried until crisp before serving, folded in half to cup the filling. If fried flat, what you’ve got instead is a tostada (also delicious).

Tacos Dorados (aka Flautas or Taquitos)

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

Tacos stuffed with a simple filling of shredded chicken or beef, rolled up into cigar-shaped cylinders, and deep fried until crisp. They can be served to be eaten out of hand as-is, or served a few at a time on a plate drizzled with salsa and crema.

Taco Kit tacos

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

In 1950, New York restaurateur Juvenico Maldonado helped to make tacos a popular weeknight dinner in American homes when he patented a device to hold the tacos in U-shapes as they are deep-fried; after this was invented, grocery stores across the country began to sell taco kits, complete with hard shell tortillas, seasoning mix, and taco sauce.

If you grew up in a certain era (like the ’80s), these are probably what you came to know as the taco when your mom declared one tuesday night a month (Taco Tuesdays!) as Taco Night. Brands like Old El Paso and Ortega make kits that contain a dozen hard taco shells, a squeeze bottle of ketchupy-sweet and tangy “taco sauce,” and a packet of dried herbs and spices.

All you do is brown some beef, add some water and the seasoning packet, then serve it all at the table with accompaniments of your choice. Standard options include chopped tomatoes, onions, shredded lettuce, shredded cheese, sour cream, jarred salsa, some homemade guacamole (if you’re lucky), and a couple cans of refried beans. People would stuff their tacos as they see fit, then try and eat them without letting the shells crack in half at the seam.

Cafeteria tacos

Closely related to the Taco Kit Taco, these are the industrial-scale version of the same. They’re served on the same schedule (once a month, on a tuesday), but this time the filling is spooned into taco shells by cafeteria staff outfitted with hair nets and aprons. Taco filling doesn’t fare well in steam tables, so its advisable to sprint down to the lunch hall as soon third period algebra lets out.

Puffy Tacos

[Photograph: Erin Zimmer]

The cracklier, greasier, puffier cousin to hard shell tacos, puffy tacos are always made with a fresh corn flour dough. The dough gets pressed into disks of a specific thickness (it takes practice to get this right), then tossed into a deep frier where they gently puff up. They come served with typical hard taco-style fillings, including beef or chicken garnished with cheese, lettuce, and chopped tomatoes. A specialty of San Antonio, we like the ones from Los Barrios.

Choco Tacos

[Photograph: Erin Zimmer]

Chocolate cookie taco shells stuffed with ice cream and dipped in nuts. Need we say more? Here’s how to make your own from scratch.

Fast Food Hard Tacos

A Volcano Taco with Lava Sauce from Taco Bell. [Photograph: Erin Zimmer]

There are almost too many styles of fast food tacos to enumerate, but the most popular are probably the hard corn-shelled version from Taco Bell, which comes with a choice of filling (usually a seasoned, paste-like beef mixture), the soft wheat tortilla version of the same, or the deep fried version from Jack-in-the-Box, which features a shredded beef mixture, plenty of cheese, and minimal toppings. Shells can be plain corn, or dyed bright red, coated in powdered cheese, etc. Straddling the line between Fast Food Taco, Tacos Dorados, and TLO’s are the Go-Go Taquitos from 7-11, tube-shaped, deep fried tacos served off of a hot dog warmer.

Tacodilla

[Photograph: Gabrielle Arnold]

This cross-bred lovechild of a taco and a quesadilla was created by Gabrielle Arnold of the blog Honest Fare. it’s made by sandwiching cheese in between two tortillas, griddling them until melted, then wrapping the whole thing up around a taco filling.

Taco Salads

[Photograph: Wikimedia Commons]

Taco salads were created as a clever way to serve a 3,000 calorie meal under the guise of health food. They start with an oversized deep-fried bowl-like taco shell made of either wheat flour or corn. In the bowl goes a layer of lettuce followed by any or all of the following: grilled meats, refried pinto beans, black beans, chopped onion, tomato, peppers, salsas, grated cheese, sliced olives, pickled jalapeños, cheese sauce, sour cream, guacamole, diced avocados, and chili (did I miss anything here)? It’s essentially cold nachos in which some of the chips have been replaced with chopped lettuce. Ideal for taco lovers on a diet…or…something like that.

[Photograph: J. Kenji Lopez-Alt]

And that’s the whole tamale!

Make sure to let us know about any styles we missed in the comments!

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