The Classy Cocktail To Pair With The Filet-O-Fish For A Fine-Dining Feel

Cocktails are inherently elegant. They're served cold in delicate, ritualistically specific glassware and shaken, not stirred with the aesthetics and literary lore of sophisticated, bygone eras. Fast food, on the other hand, is generally marketed for its convenience and bargain value, wrapped in saucy, wet paper and eaten in moving vehicles. Bringing the two together — a Vesper martini and a McDonald's Filet-o-Fish — might be ridiculous or brilliant, maybe both, but it's definitely delicious. The combination is certainly quirked up, but it also has a valid culinary sensibility, and there is a long and honorable tradition of pairing serious, austere cocktails with "unserious", lowbrow food, such as the New York Happy Meal's martini and fries.

The Vesper is James Bond's order in Casino Royale, Ian Fleming's first Bond book, and it's made with gin, vodka and Lillet Blanc, a fortified wine. It's strong but surprisingly smooth, citrusy and slightly herbal, with a clean and cold finish that explains why it's particularly good with salty, fried food. The cocktail's name itself comes from the Latin word for evening, and refers to Vesper Lynd, a character in Casino Royale, whose name refers to the first star that appears in the evening sky. It sips somewhere between a martini a spritz of midcentury perfume, sharp enough to hold up as a counterpart to a greasy sandwich, with subtle botanical notes.

The Filet-O-Fish, meanwhile, is McDonald's lone seafood offering, introduced in the early 1960s to attract Catholic customers avoiding meat on Fridays during Lent. The sandwich consists of a breaded, deep-fried pollock filet (originally, pricier, and more tender halibut) tartar sauce, and a slice of crooked American cheese on a steamed bun. It looks like hospital food and tastes like fish sticks and tartar sauce, and sometimes, that's just what the doctor ordered. 

The deep-fried fish is oily and salty, the tartar sauce is simple: rich, creamy and acidic, and the bun is soft and slightly sweet. The Vesper, cold, citrusy, and a bit stoic, cuts through the richness, resetting your palate between bites. It's a slightly unusual combination, but it's an example of Samin Nosrat's winning formula of salt, fat, acid, heat, plus cold, clean, refreshing, and boozy-herby. 

The real question, once you accept that a Vesper and a Filet-O-Fish belong together, is logistical. Where do you actually eat this meal? Do you bring a cocktail shaker and a bag of ice into McDonald's and assemble it at the table, or in the bathroom? Do you get the sandwich to go, then get to the nearest bar that serves Vespers before the sandwich gets cold, hoping they'll allow you to eat your fragrant, saucy outside food at the bar? Maybe you keep a portable cocktail shaker set in your truck, and you can make the Vesper on your tailgate, then sit there while watching the sunset? These are the kinds of practical questions when fine cocktail culture meets the drive-thru.

There's something a little nihilistic about the pairing, in a fun way. The Filet-O-Fish is mass-produced fast food, and the Vesper is a classy, fictional spy's order, the culinary equivalent of wearing a tuxedo to a drive-in movie. If the world is stressful and strange, and sometimes feels like it might be ending anyway ... you may as well enjoy a fried fish sando with a good, strong cocktail. Fair warning, some tartar-sauced fingerprints may end up on the fancy glass, but what did you expect?

If you do decide to attempt the pairing, the Vesper itself is actually the more straightforward recipe. The Vesper is a variation of a martini, and the classic version combines gin, vodka and Lillet Blanc, stirred or shaken with ice until very cold, and served in a chilled glass with a lemon twist. It's stronger than a standard martini, because it uses two full-strength spirits instead of a balance of lower-alcohol vermouth. Lillet Blanc is technically an aromatized wine, which is similar to vermouth, but the Vesper still ends up more spirit-forward overall. Despite the strength, the citrus peel and herbal notes of the Lillet make the combined, stirred cocktail pour and drink a lot smoother than you'd expect, and a surprisingly good combination with briny, fried seafood. To obtain the Filet-O-Fish component, go to McDonald's, and they'll take it from there.

Once you start thinking this way, the high/lowbrow combo door is flung wide open. A Big Mac could be well paired with a Manhattan, because beef loves whiskey and what is sweet, red vermouth but a spritual, spirit version of ketchup? What about fried chicken and champagne, or street tacos and a watermelon mezcal margarita? The principle and formula is the same, salty, greasy food paired with a cold, sharp drink that cuts through. Sometimes fine dining is a white tablecloth and thousand dollar tasting menus, and sometimes it means exercising your free will with a fried fish sandwich and a very cold cocktail, and watching the first evening star come out.