Episode 3 of Beár Bia is live – a podcast celebrating the unison of Irish food & drink. For this episode we’re showcasing Big Grill Festival and Dingle gin
Dee Laffan and Oisin Davis are on a mission to highlight the finest Irish food & drink pairings through their brand new podcast “Beár Bia.” Translated to English as Food Bar, Beár Bia’s key focus is that local foods taste best when enjoyed with local drinks and Ireland is no exception. Furthermore, pairing our native food native food & drinks is a vital means to develop our Irish culinary culture.
It can be accessed on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.
How does Beár Bia work?
Each episode will have a different focus – whether it be pairings from a particular county, from an event, a bar or restaurant, a specific ingredient or cooking method, or themed around a food or drink brand. We invite Irish food & drink producers for a round-the-table, fun-filled tasting, and discussion. Brewers chatting with cheesemakers, distillers hanging out with chefs, etc – all of it recorded, filmed & photographed for the podcast.
Episode 3
For episode three, we shifted our focus to Big Grill, Europe’s largest BBQ and food festival, which takes place in Herbert Park, Dublin on August 22nd – 25th. We wanted to engage with one of their Irish drinks partners and pair their drinks with dishes from participating festival restaurants.
Dingle Distillery were keen to collaborate and their Dingle Gin became the star of the show! It is distilled, bottled and packaged onsite in Dingle, Kerry. Among its many botanicals, you will find local wild ingredients such as rowanberry, fuchsia and myrtle. All of which give this multiple award winning gin an incredible balance of spice, citrus and floral notes with tastes and textures straight from The Kingdom itself.
Two different Dingle Gin cocktails that will be served at Big Grill Festival were selected for the pairing:
– “Gin & Juice” made with Dingle Gin, Pineapple, Lime, Sugar Syrup & Soda Water.
– “Watermelon Sugar High” made with Dingle Gin, Watermelon, Raspberry, Lime & Soda.
Of the huge selection of guest restaurants and chefs appearing at Big Grill, we worked with two to create food pairings to accompany the Dingle Gin cocktails for the podcast: Hang Dai, the Chinese & Asian restaurant on Camden St, Dublin 2, and Bahay, the Filipino food truck.
Hang Dai’s head chef Thiago Guerra Pereira turned his attention to the wonderful Skeaghanore duck from West Cork. It was cooked over an open fire and made into a bao with some house-made hoisin sauce and pickles. Enjoyed alongside the Gin & Juice cocktail, the richness of the duck is balanced beautifully by the pineapple sweetness and spice of the gin.
Alex O’Neill of Bahay, looked towards the incredible bounty of MacNally’s Farm in north Dublin. She took some of their seasonal vegetables and grilled them over fire with peaches, serving it all up with Filipino wild rice to make a salad that will be sold as a main and a side dish at Big Grill. This was paired with the Watermelon Sugar High cocktail, which amplified the freshness and smoky character of the salad.
These exact pairings will be available at Big Grill and we encourage all festival attendees to try them, at least once! For as we always say on the Beár Bia podcast, things that grow together, go together.
About the hosts….
Dee Laffan is a food journalist and editor with over 15 years of experience. Currently, she is writing for TheTaste.ie, Irish Country Living in the Farmers Journal, and Irish Country Magazine. Dee is also the co-founder and editor of Scoop: Irish Food Stories, an annual Irish food magazine, which is published by Nine Bean Rows Books. Dee is a broadcaster and was co-host of the Spice Bags Podcast from 2020-2023 when it finished. The podcast won Best Food Podcast twice in the Irish Food Writing Awards in 2021 and 2023. Dee describes herself as a professional eater, and when she’s not doing that you’ll find her on stage at festivals and events across the country, talking about food. She’s a proud Irish Food Writers’ Guild member and a Blas na hÉireann judge (Irish Food Awards).
Oisín Davis is an award winning cocktail creator, spirits columnist and best selling author of his debut book,”Irish Kitchen Cocktails.” Through his company Great Irish Beverages, he has run nationwide drinks festivals, worked all around the world educating and marketing for Irish whiskey and manages publicity for some of Ireland’s most prestigious spirit brands. He has a monthly award winning spirits column in Food & Wine Magazine, is a regular speaker at international bar and spirits shows and previously wrote a food column in The Irish Times for five years.
With thanks to…
The Beár Bia podcast has been made possible with very kind support from Bord Bia.
Huge thanks to everyone at Bord Bia Bloom and all the food & drinks producers we worked with for this episode.
Stay up to date with us on https://www.instagram.com/bearbiapodcast/
For more info please email oisin@greatirishbeverages.com or deelaffan@gmail.com
