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By Root 878 0

World, it was consumed largely in the privacy of the bedroom. Finishing a chocolate drink with the fragrant crunchy spark of Taha’a vanilla salt would not have been a good idea in this setting—it would surely have escalated things to the point where the presence of the bed weighed too heavily on everyone’s minds, turning a purely social invitation into something rather more.

1 cup heavy cream

2 cups milk

12 ounces dark chocolate (about 70 percent cacao), finely chopped

4 two-finger pinches Halen Môn Sea Salt with Taha’a Vanilla

Heat the cream and milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until steaming but not boiling. Stir in the chocolate and keep stirring until completely melted. Remove from the heat and let cool for 30 minutes. This step helps to thicken the chocolate.

Reheat over very low heat, stirring often, until steam rises from the surface. Stir in the salt and serve in warm cups.

SWEET MURRAY RIVER SIDECAR

SERVES 1

Imagine strolling home along the long dusty road after a hard day in the fields. At the crossroads you encounter a gaggle of tow-haired youngsters sitting at a card table. “Sidecar, mister?” they shout. The sidecar is a lemonade drink for grown-ups. A touch of salt opens up the entire experience, makes it restorative. Citrus playing tag with sugar, chilled juice teeter-tottering with warming alcohol, the entire drink alloyed with salt’s wisdom and captured beautifully in a glass of coppery liquid.

1 three-finger pinch Murray River flake salt

1 tablespoon sugar

¾ ounce fresh lemon juice, plus more for wetting rim

1½ ounces Cognac or good brandy

¾ ounce triple sec

1 strip lemon zest

Combine the salt and sugar on a flat plate. Wet the rim of a highball glass with the lemon juice. Place the glass upside down on the plate to rim it with the salt and sugar. Put the glass in the freezer.

Combine the Cognac, triple sec, and the ¾ ounce lemon juice over ice in a shaker and shake well for 5 seconds. Remove the glass from the freezer and strain the drink into the glass. Garnish with a twist of lemon zest. This drink can also be served on the rocks: pour ice and liquor into an old-fashioned glass rimmed with the sugar-salt mixture.

BOURBON ON THE ROCKS WITH IBURI-JIO CHERRY SMOKED SALT

SERVES 1

Some bourbons, though they may come from deep in the Kentucky heartland of America, bear within them all the smoky mystery of a single malt Scotch brewed on the edge of a peaty moor in Scotland. To revel in the delicious tension of these two great whiskey regions, smoky up your bourbon with a pinch of smoked salt on the rocks. Take the sensation to its near-ridiculous extreme by making that smoked salt Iburi-jio Cherry, a soft and supple deep-sea salt cold-smoked with cherry wood from that much newer but dead-serious whiskey-making region, Japan. The salt brings just a hint of smoked bacon aroma that whets your appetite even as the drink slakes your thirst.

2 ounces bourbon whiskey, such as Woodford Reserve or Baker’s

Scant two-finger pinch Iburi-Jio Cherry salt

Fill a rocks glass half full with large ice cubes. Pour the whiskey over the rocks; it should come not more than two-thirds of the way to the top of the ice. Sprinkle with the salt. Inhale. Imbibe.

ALAEA HAWAIIAN BLOODY MARY

SERVES 1

Life is so important. There is something you really need to say. But the high voltage coil of iron-rich Alaea Hawaiian salt rimming the Bloody Mary glass at your finger draws you like an electromagnet. The first sip trips the circuit and sends the electrical charge through your body, electrifying your nervous system, vibrating your body, rebooting the brain stem. The surge of spicy tomato juice, tangy citrus, and vaporizing horseradish courses through you. A nibble at the turgid stalk of celery returns things to rights, but by now you are far away, refreshed, restored, forgetting what it was you wanted to say.

Fine alaea Hawaiian salt

Juice of ¼ lemon

2 ounces vodka

2 dashes celery bitters

6 drops clam juice

6 drops Worcestershire sauce

1 teaspoon horseradish

3 to 6 drops