In the general scheme of things, “texture” is a word that’s easy to define. We can physically feel it through touch and recognize it when eating. But when it comes to cocktails, texture can be trickier to grasp.

Or that’s what I thought before I heard Machine Hospitality Group Beverage Director Aneka Saxon talk about her drinks at the group’s newest venture, Dearly Beloved. Cocktail after cocktail, texture was a word that came up often and, even better, was something I could identify when tasting her drinks.

“When I started in this industry, it was first learning about the balance of acidity, sweetness and the spirit,” Saxon said. Exploring aroma and how you can taste one thing and smell something totally different was next on her education list. That evolved into “how does this drink actually feel while I’m drinking it.” Her answer? “It’s shown me that to take a drink from average to exceptional can often be down to texture.”

While for most of us on the guest side of the bar, texture isn’t something we think about when it comes to the cocktails we are drinking, it’s often top of mind for those who are making them.

“Texture is one of the first things I think about after I decide the style of the drink — rocks, tall, up, long — and figure out what the drink wants to be,” said Peter Vestinos of Bisous and Sparrow. “It is also the last thing I go back to when tweaking a cocktail. We don’t talk it about it, but it’s something we do.”

For JP Hernandez, who created the cocktail menu at just-opened Americano and leads the bar program at Koval Distillery’s tasting room, texture is regularly his cocktail fixer. “Sometimes, I make a cocktail that I think is perfect in my head, but something is missing once I make it,” he said. “I often use texture to get it right.”

That was the case with a vodka-based key lime cocktail he created a few years back. Hernandez struggled to find a way to improve the “boring” cocktail. Until that is, he infused graham crackers into the vodka overnight and then filtered the spirit. “It added an element of texture to almost where you wanted to bite the drink,” he said. “It made the entire the cocktail and almost was the most important thing.”

Hernandez is also a fan of clarifying cocktails with dairy. When combined with citrus, the milk curdles, becoming a filter that absorbs the solids in the cocktail. Once strained, the cocktail comes out crystal clear. “A benefit of this technique is that it leaves your cocktail with a nice silky-smooth mouthfeel,” he said.

For Americano’s clarified strawberry daiquiri, Hernandez uses whole milk, while heavy cream is used to add a richer texture to their pina colada. The addition of dairy in the cocktail also rounds out the alcohol, he said, meaning that you can use a higher-octane alcohol and still have a balanced drink.

“Texture in cocktails often comes down to viscosity and how dense something feels on your palate,” said Saxon, who has been experimenting with olive oils. “When you shake it, the oil breaks up into tiny bubbles that float on the top of the drink. When you drink it, it coats your lips and almost feels like you’re wearing Chapstick.”

Beverage Director Aneka Saxon mixes a drink at Dearly Beloved in Chicago on June 26, 2024. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

In her vodka-based This Side of Paradise, a few drops of Italian lemon olive oil provide an unctuous, refreshing flavor to the cocktail, while the melon helium foam topper offers a tingly sensation. “The addition of the olive oil gives it such a richness of texture that plays well against the flirty bubbles,” she said.

But not all oils are created equal when it comes to cocktails, said Saxon, who recalls the disastrous results when she tried to create a cocktail with truffle oil. “The whole bar smelled like truffles for two days,” she said.

“Texture adds more dimension to cocktails making them more interesting and can help carry flavors,” Vestinos said. But texture needs to be a consideration in presentation and how long the cocktail sits. “If something goes on ice, it probably needs more texture to help it ‘live’ as it continues to get diluted over time. If the drink is up, it will warm up over time and sometimes those textures may be off-putting as the temperature rises.”

Vestinos tackles these issues by letting his test cocktails sit for a while, tasting periodically along the way. The necessary tweaks follow. “The first sip is rarely the same as the last, but it should be just as good and perhaps become more interesting,” he said.

Vestinos incorporates texture into his cocktails by experimenting with bitters, bubbles and aged spirits, which add tannins from the wood. He also pays close attention to the type of sugar he uses — think cane sugar, turbinado, caster sugar, simple syrup or even a liqueur — as each inherently brings a different texture to the cocktail.

Sometimes texture innovation can be found by going backward. When working on crafting the perfect daiquiri for rum-focused Sparrow, Vestinos found his light-bulb moment in a recipe from the late 1800s. Rather than using the more common simple syrup in the three-ingredient drink, caster sugar, a finely ground sugar, was used instead, which reduced the drinks viscosity and let the base spirit shine.

The Sidecar cocktail at Dearly Beloved, shown June 26, 2024, consists of Brandy Sainte Louise, lemon, citrus curd, Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao and La Muse Verte Absinthe. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

At John’s Food & Wine, sommelier Jonas Bittencourt experiments with various vermouths and simple syrup ratios to add texture. “One of our founding cocktails, John’s Old-Fashioned, features a rich and oily vermouth bianco from Italy plus some in-house simple syrups, which give it a much smoother texture than your average old-fashioned,” he said.

For the Lincoln Park restaurant’s new mint julep, Bittencourt uses a complex white vermouth from Spain and a richer 2-1 mint simple syrup. “It feels rounder and definitely has more weight,” he said. “This unique texture elevates it from a classic slammable drink to a more mellow sipping option.”

“Texture is on the forefront of when I’m creating a cocktail,” said Kelsey Kasper, beverage director-partner of Logan Square’s newly opened Common Decency.

Unique house-made syrups often play a big role in creating texture. Take, for instance, the Centerfold Angel, which is made up of Leblon cachaca, Joseph Cartron Banane liqueur, lime juice, cardamom and angostura bitters and house-made Brazil nut orgeat. “The orgeat makes the drink creamy without being heavy or too overpowering and adds additional depth that you wouldn’t normally get from a regular simple syrup,” Kasper said.

For the Coffee Date cocktail, an interesting take on an espresso martini, Kasper incorporates a house-made date and cacao syrup. “The oils from the date and espresso create a great foam that makes each sip super silky and smooth,” she said. On the rim of the glass, a dried cacao and salt mixture adds some unexpected crunch.

The Two Wrongs cocktail at Dearly Beloved consists of chapuline infused Los Magos Sotol, Convite Mezcal Una, cochineal, chapuline syrup, coconut rum, cacao, chocolate bitters, tarantula tincture and white sesame oil, shown June 26, 2024. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

At Maple & Ash, bar manager Mario Flores also utilizes multiple textures in the Gold Coast restaurant’s Second Place Champ cocktail. A riff on a whiskey sour, the drink is made with bourbon, sherry, vermouth and cacao bitters and topped with an egg white foam and sesame seeds. “You get the texture coming from the foam, the cocktail and the crispness of the sesame seeds,” he said. Next up, Flores plans on playing with chile-infused oils.

For home bartenders looking to add some texture to their own creations, Bitterncourt recommends starting with your favorite cocktail and getting creative. Cosmo lovers might want to switch out part of the cranberry juice for strawberry simple syrup, for example. “Always start with what you know,” he said.

Kasper said to start with a shaken egg white or, if preferred, aquafaba, which is the liquid garbanzo beans are canned in. While good when served on top of a cocktail, she also recommends using the foamy mixture in a tall fizz-style drink, which adds extra body.

Saxon recommended that home bartenders be bold but start with small quantities. “Experimentation is the key for most discovery,” she said. “It might be horrible, and you might end up throwing it away like I do all the time, but it’s worth knowing and learning from that experience.”

Lisa Shames is a freelance writer.

Nada Hassanein | Stateline.org (TNS)

Public health officials are concerned about bird flu, which so far has been detected in three dairy farmworkers — two in Michigan and one in Texas — as well as in cattle in a dozen states.

The farmworkers’ symptoms were mild, and researchers have not found that the H5N1 virus, also known as bird flu, can spread from person to person. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there is little risk to the general public. However, flu viruses evolve, and H5N1 could mutate and gain the ability to infect people more easily.

“The reason public health authorities are and should be on high alert is because this is a potential high-consequence pathogen,” said Meghan Davis, an epidemiologist and microbiologist at Johns Hopkins University.

That’s why state officials are so focused on testing and surveillance of dairy workers. But they are encountering significant challenges.

H5N1 is deadly to domestic poultry and can wipe out entire flocks in a matter of days, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. As a result, the poultry industry has responded vigorously to the threat, culling entire flocks when they detect even one infected bird. But H5N1 is milder in cows, and the response on dairy farms has been less aggressive.

The CDC and USDA have advised dairy farms to monitor for the virus in cattle and humans, but testing remains voluntary, except for herds moving across state lines.

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In addition, dairy farms are often in remote rural areas, and workers have little access to transportation and no sick leave. As a result, it’s difficult for them to travel to health care providers for testing and treatment. Many dairy workers, who are mostly immigrants, speak Indigenous languages like Nahuatl or K’iche, according to the National Center for Farmworker Health, a nonprofit that offers support and training for centers that focus on the health of farmworkers.

Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician and scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, emphasized that the current bird flu strain isn’t a pandemic threat to humans. That’s why, he said, this is the perfect time to get the right testing and surveillance measures in place.

“If you can’t get it right with something that’s as forgiving as this virus has been, in terms of its inefficiency in infecting humans, it really doesn’t bode well for when the stakes are higher,” Adalja said.

So far, cases of the virus have been documented among domestic livestock in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas and Wyoming, according to the USDA. Last month, federal officials announced grants to farms to offset the cost of milk loss from sick cows. Four states — Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas — are launching voluntary pilot programs to test for the virus in dairy farms’ bulk milk tanks.

In Michigan, where the virus has been detected in 25 herds, Tim Boring, director of the state Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said efforts are focused on trying to help farmers recoup losses and agree to testing. Last month, the agency announced it would use a combination of federal and state money to give as much as $28,000 to up to 20 affected farms.

The state also launched a study to find out if there are antibodies in people exposed to sick cows, aiming to determine if there have been any asymptomatic infections.

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian, Michigan’s chief medical executive, said the state is working with community health clinics and local health departments to reach farmworkers.

“They not only know the farms in their counties, but they also know many of the farmworker organizations,” she said.

Dairy farmworkers, who are often immigrants, can’t afford to miss a day of work, and can be reluctant to reach out to request testing or say they feel sick, advocates say.

“This is a population of people that is just vastly underserviced when it comes to both outreach and trust established with state and federal agencies,” said Elizabeth Strater, strategic campaigns director at United Farm Workers, a labor union. “This is a group of workers that are some of the poorest workers in the United States.”

Immigrants make up 51% of daily labor at dairy farms, and farms that employ immigrants produce 79% of the nation’s milk supply, according to the National Milk Producers Federation.

Amy Liebman of the Migrant Clinicians Network, an education and outreach group of experts in migrant health, said testing should be administered on the farms rather than in clinics.

“Dairies are in rural areas, very isolated geographically. You’re not going to get all these workers in one place to be able to do any kind of surveying or testing. It is a matter of really trying to go to where the workers are,” she said.

But it hasn’t been easy getting farm owners to agree to that. The Texas state health department told Stateline it has offered on-site testing to farmers, but as of mid-June, it had tested only about 20 symptomatic dairy workers who volunteered for testing. It also has given personal protective equipment to “interested dairies” and posted a notice online offering to deliver the equipment.

Coordination among state or local agricultural and health departments is key to tracking viral spread. A lack of coordination and monitoring can be contributing to underreporting cases.

“I think it is definitely more widespread than is currently reported,” said Dr. Shira Doron, chief infection control officer at Tufts Medicine. “The barriers between the agencies are really hampering our efforts right now.”

The CDC has offered a $75 payment to any farmworker who agrees to be tested and provide blood and nasal swab samples to the agency. But Doris Garcia-Ruiz, who directs farmworker outreach at Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, said that won’t make up for days of lost income.

“If they take the time off to go to their doctor’s office, they don’t have sick leave, so they’re not going to get paid,” she said.

The CDC’s latest figures show that at least 53 people have been tested in the cattle outbreak, with a majority of those in Michigan. Strater says that’s not enough.

“That’s abysmal,” she said. “Our method of testing is so passive. They’re relying on workers reporting to medical clinics; these are workers that are not going to be taking themselves for medical treatment unless they’re experiencing something life-threatening.”

Getting workers to use personal protective equipment also is a challenge. The CDC recommends that workers wear respirators, waterproof aprons and coveralls, unvented safety goggles or a face shield, and rubber boots with sealed seams that can be sanitized. It also advises that workers follow a specific sequence of steps to remove the PPE at the end of a shift to avoid contamination.

“Dairy work is very wet, very hands-on,” said Christine Sauvé, who leads community engagement at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center. “While some industries are very familiar with PPE … the full recommendation from CDC is new and different. And so that really needs the full promotion from the employer, and then also from the state agencies.”

Sauvé worries that Michigan is prioritizing farmers’ losses, rather than farmworkers’ health, in its response. While the risk to the public is low, she and other experts say the population of farmworkers shouldn’t be forgotten.

Bethany Alcauter of the National Center for Farmworker Health described bird flu threat as “kind of a ticking time bomb.”

“Maybe it hasn’t fully gone off yet. But if we don’t manage it well, it could,” Alcauter said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.