11 Best Uses For Foldable Gin


There are not many better things that a bottle of gin can aspire to than being used in the construction of a perfectly cold, very dry, slightly dirty gin martini. And most bartenders would probably agree that a simple cocktail, well-made by trained hands is precisely the creative limit to which any alcohol should rise.

Chefs on the other hand? They’re never really satisfied with leaving well enough alone. Inveterate tinkerers that they are, they’re always screwing with the good things. Give ’em a perfectly good goose and the next thing you know they’re jamming it full of goose-food and harvesting its fattened liver for foie gras. Show ’em a taco and half of ’em are going to want to fill it with kimchee (or something even stranger). And a bottle of gin? Forget it. The first thing you’ll end up with is a drunk chef, followed quickly by gin marinades, gin sauce, gin foams, gin infusions and a nice bearnaise monter au gin.

Oh, and also? Gin paper.

No, seriously. Just ran across this today on The Daily–a story of a sous chef (Ryan Moore, from Rouge 24 in Washington D.C.) and a bartender (Gina Chersevani from LTO in Manhattan) who, while experimenting with alcoholic foam garnishes (see? Told ya…), accidentally invented gin paper out of the foamy film produced by boiling a mixture of cellulose and gin. Apparently, the stuff folds like paper, can be written on like paper, and behaves in all ways just like a piece of paper–except, of course, that you can also eat it and catch a buzz. Tastes just like gin, apparently. And cellulose, I’d guess.

Moore and Chersevani envisioned their gin paper deployed in bars as cocktail napkins (literally), folded into rings and used to collect phone numbers. They are currently hard at work trying to make tequila paper, absinthe paper and some mixer-paper to go along with the liquors. But I have a few other thoughts on the best potential uses for this new breakthrough in alcohol delivery. They are:

1. Intricately folded cocktails provide employment for out-of-work origami artists.

2. Two words: Drinkable hymnals.

3. Barroom paper-airplane-eating contests.

4. Think the myth of the hard-drinking journalist is cliche? Wait ’til the day comes when we can eat our rough drafts.

5. Drink-of-the-day calendars for forgetful alcoholics.

6. Lucrative new market for Charles Bukowski reprints.

7. Two more words: drinkable notebooks. Because it’s easier to sneak a notebook past the TSA than a hip flask.

8. Whiskey-flavored coasters in shot-and-a-beer bars.

9. Lickable wallpaper (no, thank YOU, Willy Wonka)

10. Totally awesome barroom spelling tests

11. Edible gin-and-tonic movie tickets