Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.

Strawberry and black currant juice along with date concentrate lend a subtle sweetness, accompanied by a citrus punch from orange, lemon, and honeysuckle.. Add in a bitter twang from gentian root, chamomile., and jasmine green tea and you’ve got a floral, festive, pre-dinner spritz.

Each 750ml bottle contains five servings.. Verjus Is So Much More Than Grape Juice.Fusion Verjus Blanc ($20).Food & Wine / Fusion Verjus.

“Verjus is a tart grape juice pressed from underripe wine grapes — which gives it racy acidity and little to no sugar,” says Adam Chase, who runs Adorn Bar & Restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel Chicago.. And Clint Rogers, general manager of The National in Colorado, agrees with Chase that this Napa Valley-made verjus is an excellent spritz choice.“It’s made by chefs, and bartenders have embraced it, too — it adds acidity and balance to both zero-proof and full-octane cocktails, and an undertone of green wine notes.”.

Giffard Aperitif Syrup ($24).

Food & Wine / Giffard.There are very few dishes I am willing to get on a plane for, just to eat again.

But I would sit in a metal tube in the sky a million times for a plate of chef Ann Ahmed’s Bucatini Talay.It’s a standout dish on a menu of standout dishes that form a bridge to her home country of Laos at her Minneapolis restaurant Khâluna.

Some might be tempted to label the bucatini as "fusion," which these days often connotes a thoughtless mash-up of dishes from two cultures.This noodle dish, however, is so much more than smushing Laotian and Italian flavors together.. Talay, which translates to “sea” in Laotian, references the generous use of seafood.