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Sauced

The Coaster

What happens when two former chefs — now leading voices in the drinks world — turn the mic on their favorite topic: cooking with booze and drinking with food? That’s Sauced, a new weekly podcast from Tim McKirdy and Sother Teague.

Each week, Tim and Sother unpack a single dish: its history, the techniques that make it sing, and the drinks that belong alongside it. From Beef Bourguignon to Crêpes Suzette, we're exploring the classics — and the booze that gives them their identity.

Tim is a drinks writer, editor, and podcaster who's spent years covering cocktails, wine, and spirits. Sother is one of New York's most respected bartenders and the author of I'm Just Here for the Drinks. Together, they bring chef instincts, drinks expertise, and the kind of meaty conversation you'd want to partake in over a great meal.

New episodes every Thursday. Premium subscribers get bonus content, recipe cards, and early access to live events at https://sauced.supercast.com.

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S1 · E41
Today · 1 hr 34 min
Birria
Spain's own dictionary defines the word as a person or thing of little value, and it traces back to the Latin for a boar. Birria kept the insult and became the taco people now line up down the street for. The trail runs from Jalisco's wedding and baptism tables to Tijuana's red, cheese-stuffed version to everyone's feed. We ask whether the one most people know matters more than the original, weigh goat against beef, settle whether the meat ever sees a sear, and work out why that slick of fat on the consommé earns its place. Then the booze gets decided live, with a nod to two Mexican states, and one of those bottles stays open for what we pour afterward. This week's cocktail is The Sizzle Swizzle, Amontillado Sherry and Mezcal over pebble ice with lime, grapefruit, ginger and falernum, then painted with Peychaud's. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: G4: https://pkgdgroup.com/g4-tequila/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/ El Buho Mezcal: https://elbuhomezcal.com/
S1 · E40
October 8 · 1 hr 9 min
Clam Chowder
New England claims Clam Chowder as its own, but the dish carries a distinctly French accent. Its name comes from the chaudière, the cooking pot Breton fishermen brought across the Atlantic. Centuries later, the man who set the modern standard made the same trip. We read the oldest printed recipe in full, a 1751 poem that calls for a bottle of red wine, and sit down to Melville's bowl on Nantucket. From there it's the long-running feud between New England and Manhattan, including the year a Maine lawmaker tried to outlaw tomatoes in chowder, plus the era when clam shells could cover Harvard tuition. Then we lock in our non-negotiables, size up our options at the seafood counter, and settle the roux question. The pairing stays on the coast. This week's cocktail is The Harry Johnson, a tall build of Manzanilla Sherry, ginger honey syrup, and lemon over pebble ice, topped with a spritz of peated Scotch. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: El Ateo: https://pkgdgroup.com/tequila-el-ateo/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E39
October 1 · 1 hr 38 min
Pulled Pork
The pork shoulder spent most of its life as a cheap, tough poverty cut. Then Pulled Pork went from Carolina pits to a London street-food trailer to menus across the city, and worldwide searches for it peaked in the spring of 2020. We trace how the humblest cut on the pig became a global craze, and what a pandemic had to do with it. We also get to the bottom of why the shoulder is sold as a butt, settle our non-negotiables for smoking one at home, and make the case for the sauce that really belongs on the table. It even finds its way into the glass. This week's cocktail is The Francis Bourgeois, a riff on the classic Stone Fence with apple brandy, Angostura bitters, and hard cider. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Asil Raicilla de la Sierra: https://pkgdgroup.com/raicilla-asil Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E38
September 24 · 1 hr 34 min
Shepherd's Pie
Online, the rule gets enforced like scripture: shepherds keep sheep, so Shepherd's Pie means lamb, and beef makes it a Cottage Pie. The oldest recipe usually cited for the dish asked for cold meat of any kind. For most of its life, nobody was checking what sat under the potatoes. We trace how a Monday-night leftover earned two names, meet the pharmacist who sold France on a crop it thought was pig feed, and ask why Americans eat so little lamb. The build settles which booze goes in the filling, where cheese belongs, and what keeps the mash from sinking. Real mint sauce gets a defense, and the herb finds its way into the glass, too. This week's cocktail is the Parmentier's Fancy, an Irish whiskey and dry sherry sour with lemon, ginger, Garden Party bitters, and a peated Scotch mist. Sother makes them himself: https://creativedrunk.bigcartel.com/product/cocktail-bitters/ For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Mezcal Ultramundo: https://pkgdgroup.com/post/ultramundo/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E37
September 17 · 1 hr 30 min
Hot Dogs
Americans eat about 20 billion hot dogs a year, roughly 70 per person, and close to 7 billion between Memorial Day and Labor Day alone. It is five centuries old and lives in our songs and our slang, yet it still loses top billing to the burger. From a $1.50 warehouse counter to $200 under gold leaf, no food is more American, or harder to pin down. We get into where it really came from and why the famous origin story is a myth, how to cook one so it snaps instead of splits, and the regional map that sets New York against Chicago. Plus the one debate we are never going to settle. We also turned the hot dog into a drink. This week's cocktail is The Ballpark Martini, a savory, briny mix of potato vodka, pickle brine, and celery. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Arriesgado Ancestral Tequila: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E36
September 10 · 1 hr 5 min
Chicken Caesar Salad
Everyone assumes the Caesar is Roman, or at least Italian. Instead, it was invented in Tijuana on the Fourth of July, 1924, by an Italian immigrant who worked a border crossing from San Diego because Prohibition had left his side the only place you could still sell a drink. It began as tableside theater, improvised from what a holiday rush left in the kitchen. We get into whether the anchovy everyone argues about earns a place in ours, where we land on breast or thigh, and how a dish that began as luxury became the most shelf-stabilized salad around. Meanwhile, this week's cocktail is The Aviator, a dirty daiquiri of white rum, fresh lime, and olive brine that carries the salad's savory side into a drink. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: El Acabo: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E35
September 3 · 1 hr 10 min
Shrimp and Grits
For most of its life, Shrimp and Grits was a morning meal, the thing shrimpers ate at dawn while the season was running. Its old names say so plainly: "breakfast shrimp," and the earlier "shrimp and hominy." Then a Chapel Hill chef did the daring thing and moved it onto the dinner menu, and a 1985 New York Times write-up sent a humble plate national. We get into how it climbed from the docks to the white tablecloth, why grits and not shrimp are the real non-negotiable, where we land on booze in a dish with barely any room for it, and the Charleston bottle that ties the glass back to the plate. Fittingly, the drink leans into those breakfast roots. This week's cocktail is the Not Your Modern Milk Punch, the Southern style made with real milk instead of the clarified version, split between bourbon and brandy. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Tequila El Viejito: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E35
August 29 · 1 hr 11 min
Bonus Episode: Mashed Potatoes
This is a bonus episode that first went out to our premium subscribers in January. We're dropping it in the public feed today so you can hear what bonus episodes are like. They typically feature deep dives into a single technique, ingredient, or side dish, or historical deep dive. Mashed potatoes might be one of the simplest dishes to make, but getting them right? That's another story. We're breaking down where things go wrong (gluey textures, waterlogged spuds, the "point of no return") and how the pros avoid them. Along the way, we unpack Joël Robuchon's legendary 50% butter ratio, debate the ricer vs. food mill, and settle on the definitive preparation for Sauced mash. Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod
S1 · E34
August 27 · 1 hr 31 min
Beef Wellington
The hardest part of a Beef Wellington isn't the beef. It is getting a crisp pastry shell and a rare, rested center out of one hot oven, both finishing at the same moment, and one wrong move ruins the whole thing. We take the build apart so it finally stops being intimidating. We trace how a French classic wearing a British hero's name became the most obsessed-over showstopper on the internet, right up to the chef who turned it into a meme. Then we get into the one cut of beef that works, the pile of small techniques that make it feel harder than it is, and where we land on the mustard, the barrier that keeps the pastry from going soggy, and the temperature you actually pull it at. The booze runs through the dish too, so it runs into the glass. This week's cocktail is The Wellington Manhattan, built on overproof rye and the same Madeira that goes into the mushrooms, with a mushroom bitter to tie the glass to the plate. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Palomo Mezcal: https://pkgdgroup.com/post/palomo-who-we-are/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/ Wines 'Til Sold Out: https://www.wtso.com/ Buy this episode's wine: https://www.wtso.com/shared/product/ID89439/ Celebrating 20 years. Use code PAIRING for $10 off orders of $100+. One-time use. Cannot be combined with other discount codes and may not be valid in conjunction with special sales.
S1 · E33
August 20 · 1 hr 15 min
Chicken Piccata
Chicken Piccata puts the bird in its title, but the capers run the show. Pull out that hand-harvested flower bud, too precious to come in a normal-sized jar, and two professional chefs will tell you the dish stops being itself. So how did an ingredient you can barely fish out with a spoon, one that people swear once cost more than gold, become the thing a weeknight classic lives or dies on? This week we get into what a caper actually is and why it comes in six market sizes almost no one has heard of, the word everyone uses for this dish and no one can define, and how these little buds landed in a recipe that started without them. We settle the non-negotiables (the brine beats the bird, apparently), make the case for vermouth over wine, and land on lemon three ways that keeps it all light and bright. The caper even makes it into the glass. This week's two drinks both take a hit of caper brine: the Piccatini, an Italian gin martini with dry sherry and a touch of Bianco vermouth, and the Dirty Limoncello Spritz, homemade limoncello lengthened with Prosecco and sparkling mineral water. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: G4: https://pkgdgroup.com/g4-tequila/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/ Wines 'Til Sold Out: https://www.wtso.com/ Buy this episode's wine: https://www.wtso.com/shared/product/ID92321/ Celebrating 20 years. Use code PAIRING for $10 off orders of $100+. One-time use. Cannot be combined with other discount codes and may not be valid in conjunction with special sales.
S1 · E32
August 13 · 1 hr 13 min
Osso Buco
The same thing that ruins osso buco is the thing that makes it. The tough silverskin wrapped around a veal shank starts shrinking at about 140 degrees and cups the meat into a hockey puck. Cook it low, hold it long, and that same collagen melts into the gelatin that turns a cut the butcher couldn't give away into a special-occasion plate. This week we get into the two moves that keep the shank from cupping, why veal sends the whole dish white instead of red, and the trick that makes the texture better the day after you cook it. We land on gremolata as a non-negotiable, walk the low-and-slow window that separates spoon-tender from fall-apart, and find room for a little cinnamon nobody saw coming. There's a French streak running through this Italian dish, so this week's cocktail is the Ponte Vecchio, a brandy Boulevardier with Amaro Nonino and Punt e Mes, stirred over a rock with a lemon twist to echo the gremolata. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: El Ateo Tequila: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/ Wines 'Til Sold Out: https://www.wtso.com/ Buy this episode's wine: https://www.wtso.com/shared/product/ID93777 Celebrating 20 years. Use code PAIRING for $10 off orders of $100+. One-time use. Cannot be combined with other discount codes and may not be valid in conjunction with special sales.
S1 · E31
August 6 · 1 hr 27 min
Lobster Rolls
Lobster used to be fertilizer. Coastal tribes buried it in the fields, colonists let it wash up in piles two feet deep, and prisoners complained they were being fed bugs. In 1634, William Wood wrote that a heap of lobster shells by your door marked you as too poor to eat anything else. This week we follow that same animal to a fifty-dollar tray of cold lobster salad on a buttered, griddled bun, and figure out how the cockroach of the sea got its glow-up. We take opposite corners on the only debate that matters, Maine (cold, a little mayo, celery) against Connecticut (warm, drawn butter, nothing else), get into why the sweetest meat isn't the tail, how to pull it off the heat the second before it turns to rubber, and why a new-shell lobster seasons itself from the inside. There's no booze in the dish, so this one is about what you drink beside it. Sother's cocktail is the Maine Dispatch, an agricole rum Daiquiri with celery juice and tarragon. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all this week's sponsors: Asil Raicilla de la Sierra: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/ Wines 'Til Sold Out: https://www.wtso.com/ Buy this episode's wine: https://www.wtso.com/wine-search?terms=93%20Pt.%20Talbott%20Vineyards%20Sleepy%20Hollow%20Vineyard%20Chardonnay%202023/ Celebrating 20 years. Use code PAIRING for $10 off orders of $100+. One-time use. Cannot be combined with other discount codes and may not be valid in conjunction with special sales.
S1 · E30
July 30 · 1 hr 6 min
Chicken Teriyaki
You might think teriyaki is a sauce, but it's a cooking technique. Teri means the shine, yaki means grilled, and the name describes what happens when you lacquer meat over fire, a move the Japanese have been making since the 1600s. The bottle didn't arrive until 1961. This week we trace it from an 1813 shrimp dish to the supermarket aisle, and make the case that the real version, four ingredients reduced in a pan, beats anything you can buy. We get into why almost everyone still reaches for the jar, and how a Japanese grill dish quietly became Seattle's default cheap lunch, outnumbering the town's McDonald's. Plus the one fruit that will wreck your chicken if it sits too long. Sother's cocktail this week is the Pina Yaki, Japanese whisky with yuzu, a roasted pineapple syrup, and a little of the teriyaki sauce shaken into the glass. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Mezcal Ultramundo: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E29
July 23 · 1 hr 22 min
Ratatouille
The most famous ratatouille in the world isn't a ratatouille. The dish that makes the critic weep in the Pixar film is a confit byaldi, thin sliced and fanned in a pan, designed by Thomas Keller off a recipe Michel Guérard published in 1976. What Provence actually makes is a stew, and this week we make the case that the stew is the better dish. We trace the word back to the Occitan, where it meant a coarse stew of odds and ends and wasn't a compliment, through to the 1930s when the version we recognize finally became canon. Then we get into the argument that decides the whole dish: cook every vegetable separately, or throw it all in one pot. Julia Child says separately and takes three hours over it. Jacques Pépin says one pot and pay attention to the timing. We settle where we land, and why texture is the entire game. Traditional ratatouille has no booze in it at all, so we built some in. French dry vermouth, cooked down with the onion and garlic until it has completely evaporated, leaving the acidity and the herbs and none of the liquid. Sother's cocktail this week is the Hugo Spritz, elderflower and sparkling wine in a big goblet, garnished with dried lavender to tie it straight back to Provence. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Arriesgado Ancestral Tequila: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E28
July 16 · 1 hr 29 min
Baja Fish Tacos
The Baja fish taco didn't come from a San Diego beach. It was born in the late 1950s at a black market in Ensenada, and the first ones were grilled shark. This week we trace it from that fish stall across the border to the college kid who turned it into a SoCal staple, then build the deep-fried version everyone pictures. Along the way we make the case that the corn tortilla matters as much as the fish, get into the 3,500-year-old process that makes a real one, and argue out the non-negotiables that separate a Baja taco from just fried fish in a shell. Beer in the batter is a given, so we push the booze into a few places you wouldn't expect. Then we settle the fish question, the batter question, and how you build the thing in four bites. Two drinks this week, head to head. Tim's Baja Old Fashioned, a split of añejo Tequila and Mezcal with maple and a few drops of bourbon-barrel-aged fish sauce. And Sother's Panic at Hibisco, añejo Tequila with hibiscus, pepita orgeat, and a four-citrus blend. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: El Acabo Raicilla: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E27
July 9 · 1 hr 7 min
Bolognese
Real Bolognese is a meat sauce that happens to contain a little tomato, not the tomato sauce with meat that most of us grew up on. That's only where the misconceptions start. It's never served on spaghetti. And Bologna guards the real thing so closely that the city registered the official recipe, right down to the exact width of the pasta, with the Chamber of Commerce. We trace it from a cardinal's cook in the 1700s, whose ragù had no tomato in it at all, through Pellegrino Artusi's 1891 version to the recipe Bologna finally codified. Then we argue out every non-negotiable, from red wine versus white, to the surprising dairy that goes in before either (and the order that turns out to matter), to the fresh pasta the sauce was actually built to grip. There's even an ingredient the official recipe flatly bans that you'd never think twice about adding. For the glass, The Academy, a gin Martini with fresh tomato water stirred in, named for the very institution that codified the sauce. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Tequila El Viejito: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E26
July 2 · 1 hr 46 min
Burgers
At least six towns claim they invented the hamburger — and the one the Library of Congress actually crowned still won't serve it on a bun or with ketchup. Which raises the real fight we spend the episode having: what even makes a burger a burger? Just in time for the Fourth of July, we trace it from the Hamburg steak to the smash era, then go round after round on the things that actually matter — the bun, the cheese, the sauce, and the doneness most people get wrong. There's the counterintuitive salt rule that decides whether you end up with a burger or a sausage, three ways to cook booze straight into it, and a running argument that neither of us fully wins. For the glass, the American Trilogy — rye whiskey and applejack, two of America's oldest spirits, built like an Old Fashioned for the most American holiday. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: Palomo Mezcal: https://pkgdgroup.com/post/palomo-who-we-are Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E25
June 25 · 1 hr 22 min
Paella
Paella isn't the rice — it's the pan. Or at least, that's where the name comes from. And in Valencia, where the dish was born, there's even a body that certifies which versions have earned the name and declares the rest "crimes against rice." Yet the seafood paella the whole world orders? The purists barely count it. We get into the authenticity war, the official ten-ingredient list, why a whole category gets written off as "rice with stuff," the one ingredient that starts fights, and how a field worker's lunch became a prince's dish. Plus the no-stir rule behind a crispy socarrat, and the dry Sherry that goes in the pan before it goes in the glass. For the glass, the Tonic con Cosas — a low-ABV cooler of Manzanilla Sherry, dry Spanish vermouth, citrus, and tonic, built off a Rebujito and a Bamboo and finished with a rosemary sprig. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week's partners: G4 Tequila: https://pkgdgroup.com/g4-tequila/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/ Check out Wikipaella: https://wikipaella.org/
S1 · E24
June 18 · 1 hr 12 min
Steak au Poivre
Five Paris chefs claimed to have invented Steak au Poivre in the early 20th-century. Four of them wrote letters of complaint to the same 1950 culinary magazine. The fifth had the best story. We dig into the origin fight, Julia Child's surprising position on the flambé, the chemistry behind why pre-ground pepper is inferior, and a red wine pairing that mirrors the pepper on a molecular level. For the glass, Americans in Paris — an Armagnac sipper built off the Vieux Carré, finished with a fresh crack of pepper over the top. For the full recipes and more, become a premium subscriber at https://sauced.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week’s partners: El Ateo Tequila: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/
S1 · E23
June 11 · 1 hr 12 min
Beer Can Chicken
Beer can chicken is the dish that defies its own science. The most credible American barbecue scientists tested it and concluded the beer in the can does almost nothing the cook thinks. Backyard chefs from Memorial Day to Labor Day have kept doing it anyway — and so will we. Today, we dig into the contested origins — including a 1993 Houston Chronicle article that puts the technique in former President George H.W. Bush's kitchen — the science that quietly buried it, the geometry that actually makes the bird crisp, and a thought experiment about a Mexican spirit at the right strength. We pair it with Coq au Can — a beer-cocktail highball in light and dark. Follow us on Instagram: @sauced.pod Thanks to all of this week’s partners: Asil Raicilla de la Sierra: https://pkgdgroup.com/#our_brands/ Underberg: https://underbergamerica.com/

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