If you’ve ever snacked on your Nacho Cheese Doritos and thought, “I wonder what these would taste like in booze form (no?), your queries are about to be answered. Nacho Cheese Doritos are now headed to the liquor shelf.
As Food & Wine reports, in a most unconventional crossover, the iconic tortilla chip brand has partnered with Empirical Spirits to release an 84-proof clear liquor that actually smells and tastes like the real thing, minus the signature crunch — thankfully. Which is to say, it’s unlike any alcohol you’ve ever smelled or tasted before. And we don’t mean that in a bad way.
Ensuring the integrity of the new creation is Lars Williams. The former chef and self-avowed flavor expert spent time at Noma before breaking off to co-found Empirical in 2017. Since then, he’s steered the company toward “uncategorized” spirits. This grants him and his team the freedom to experiment without conforming to the well-defined parameters of, say, a gin, a rum, or a whisky.
It’s precisely this sort of unrestrained attitude that led to the serendipitous development of a Doritos-flavored booze.
“In Empirical’s very early days in Copenhagen, a team member returned from lunch with a sandwich and a bag of Doritos,” Williams recalls of the origin story. “Curiosity led me to turn this snack into a spirit. Upon tasting it, the result was amazing, and we burst into laughter. We shared it with friends, especially chefs. We would just give them a little glass without telling them what it was. The sheer joy in their face was amazing to watch.”
Indeed, one sniff of the spirit is enough to reveal its anchor ingredient. The bouquet is brimming with the unmistakable tang of cheese dust. But in the sip, it’s all about cornier elements. It leaves your palate with a drying note, akin to what accumulates on your tongue after you’ve crushed a sizable bag of corn chips. In other words, it’s maybe more Fritos than Doritos.
“My goal was to recreate the entire experience of opening a bag of Doritos, getting that signature aroma, followed by its flavor dance across the palate with its unmistakable savory, cheesy, and umami notes,” adds Williams.
To get there, he started with a base of distilled beer — pilsner malt, to be precise. The Doritos were then introduced and allowed to infuse in the liquid, under exacting time and temperature. Vacuum distillation, which operates at lower temperatures than traditional distillation, was used to safeguard flavors collected during maceration. Ultimately, you can think of the product as a nacho cheese-flavored vodka.
The folks at PepsiCo, Doritos’ parent company, were suitably impressed by the mashup. It was Empirical who approached them with the idea of the collaboration. Despite the unlikely commingling of Noma-pedigreed personnel with America’s most popular snack chip, the pairing makes perfect sense when you realize that high-end chefs have a well-known penchant for off-shift junk food.
The release will arrive on shelves next month wearing a cost closer to that of caviar. The limited edition bottle of Empirical x Doritos Nacho Cheese Spirit is set to retail at $65 — nearly twice the average sum of super premium vodkas. The ability to show up at a Super Bowl party offering shots of Doritos, however, is surely priceless. Just don’t hold your breath for a Cool Ranch follow-up. Williams tried that and wasn’t happy with the results. Perhaps some Funyuns rum, instead?
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