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By Root 871 0

juices, thoughtfully chilled glasses, visually exciting garnishes—all these bow in a show of respect to that first rush of salt. But industrial refined sodium chloride in the form of kosher salt or table salt (“margarita salt”), no matter how nicely packaged or flavored, does nothing so much as present a filter of chemical artificiality between your cocktail and your mouth. A beautifully crystalline, delectably crunchy, delicately mineral, infinitely complex artisan salt with your cocktail gives your lips the primal yet sophisticated satisfaction they are due. And the lips do the talking, spreading the word to the rest of your mouth and to your throat, belly, and brain, letting everything know that all is well and good and right. You can feel it, even in the tingling of your skin.

Salt gives shape to a variety of ingredients in a cocktail. It subdues and rounds out acids in fruit juices and fermented beverages like beer and wine. It mutes bitterness to reveal depth in herbs and spices whether they be vermouths, tonics, or basil muddled with cardamom. It penetrates through sugars in liquors, syrups, and juices and brings to light the refreshing interplay of salted sweetened, sweetened salted flavors.

Cocktails and salt can come together in any number of ways. A salt rim is the most dramatic, assigning salt multiple roles as garnish, as the first blush of flavor, and as a layer of texture and flavor that shifts the quaffing of a liquid mixture into a more varied, agreeably unpredictable experience. The salted rim is one of the few examples of the salt actually constituting a sort of course in a recipe. You have the liquid and the salt, both on more or less equal terms. The autonomy given salt on such occasions suggests that the salt itself can serve as a foundation for creativity. Try crushing dried pasilla peppers and Himalayan pink salt together with a mortar and pestle for a fragrantly spiced salt-rimmed margarita. Pound a juicy-sweet Korean or Italian sel gris with lemongrass to rim a mango daiquiri.

A variation on the salted rim is the salted wrist. A bite of tart lemon from the rind, a lick of bracing sea salt from the side of the wrist, and a slug of tequila or mezcal have propelled the best of us from the calm waters of the beach to the frenzy of a Cabo San Lucas nightclub.

Salt can be sprinkled right on ice cubes. The salt perches there for a while, but also sets to work melting the ice, slowly slipping tendrils of salt into the chilled alcohol. In addition to shifting and expanding the flavor profile of the drink, it also contributes to a layering of flavors and very subtle shifts in viscosities among the swirling liquids in the glass.

Salt can be mixed directly into the cocktail itself, say, sprinkled into the tomato juice of a Bloody Mary—or the grapefruit juice of a Salty Dog, either varying or augmenting the usual salt rim. Another briny variation is the dirty martini, in which the olive’s heavily salted pickling brine is dashed into the cocktail.

Probably the most venerable cocktail salting is that delivered indirectly via a pickled garnish: the olive in a martini, the pearl onion in a gimlet, the pickled string bean or okra in a Cajun martini or Bloody Mary.

Salt also performs another role in a cocktail. It allows us as drinkers to engage in the mixocological process, exploring our subtlest appetites. Sip from a broad crescent of the salted rim and feel it in the flush of your cheeks. Skirt the salted side in favor of the residue of the last sip’s salt to reboot your system with the raw flavors of the cocktail. Then lick a fleck from the edge between sips for the heck of it. Drink a martini, then nibble the olive; or nibble an olive, then drink the martini. Premeditated or instinctual, examined or habitual, these variations on the salting of each sip are your own creations, private expressions of your own cocktail artistry, the poetic interlocution of tongue, lips, and flavor.

DRINKING CHOCOLATE WITH TAHA’A VANILLA SALT

SERVES 4

When chocolate was introduced to European aristocrats from the New