The kitchen at Birch & Bloom, the modern steakhouse and bar at Kimpton The Forum Hotel in Charlottesville, presents no shortage of fresh Virginian ingredients—veritably high-quality and invaluable to the flavors found on plates and in cocktail glasses. For Daniel Beedle, the hotel’s chief mixologist and assistant food and beverage director, every last scrap of farm-fresh herbs, fruits, and other produce is worth using. To him, doing otherwise would be a waste of opportunity, skins, pulps, and pith.
With Beedle’s implementation of a zero-waste cocktail program, emphasizing garden-to-glass ingredients, the drinks at Birch & Bloom burst with unfamiliar yet enticing tastes. By utilizing all the extra bits of produce, Beedle says, “you get more of a weighty mouthfeel, more interesting flavors that are alive in essence.”
“The idea is to use what you have on hand,” he says. For instance, with the huge strawberry harvest from the spring, Beedle immersed leftover berries in a Thai pickling spice to be used as garnishes later. To incorporate the pickle juice, he’ll add it to a future mocktail. “Fresh ingredients are very perishable,” he explains. “The act of finding ways of preservation while they’re in their peak of season is enormously valuable.” Plus, he adds, “it actually allows for a much more complex array of flavors that people typically don’t get to utilize.”
Just as the eatery’s new executive chef Ryan Collins puts fun twists on culinary classics, Beedle applies the same inventiveness to Birch & Bloom’s menu. “How do you elevate it? It has to have texture, it has to have aromatics, it has to have a point of interest and engagement,” Beedle says. “You break it down to make sure that it checks off all of those boxes before it becomes a complete product.” BirchAndBloomRestaurant.com
Check out Birch & Bloom’s Milk Punch cocktail recipe.
This article originally appeared in the October 2024 issue.
