As much as we love cooking with tea around the Tealab, we also have to confess an undying admiration for booze. The Tea Mistress has actually written a booze-based cookbook that she’s shopping around, and she has a tendency to combine her love for food with her love for liquor on a regular basis.

Naturally, that leads to some other combinations while cooking – tea plus booze plus food? How can you go wrong?

This week’s kitchen experiment came from finding a delicious-sounding recipe for honey-bourbon steak online, and deciding that the thyme called for in the original would be better replaced with tarragon, and then kicked up a notch in the marinade. Alchemy No. 2 to the rescue!

Honey-Bourbon-Tarragon Steak
(adapted from Recipe.com)

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons Alchemy No.2
• 2.5 cups water
• 1/2 cup bourbon
• 1/3 cup honey
• 3 tablespoons kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 6 top loin steaks, cut 1″ thick

Procedure

1. Bring 2.5 cups of water to a boil in a saucepan, then remove from the heat and add the Alchemy No. 2. Allow to steep for 15 minutes.
2. Strain the tea or remove the steeper you used, keeping the tea to make your brine.
3. For brine, combine the tea, 1/3c bourbon, 1/4c honey, and all the salt, tarragon, and pepper in a large bowl; stir to dissolve salt.
4. Place steaks in a resealable large plastic bag set in a shallow dish. Pour brine over steaks; seal bag. Marinate in the refrigerator for at least 6 hours or up to 8 hours, turning bag occasionally. In a small bowl, combine remaining bourbon and honey; cover and refrigerate.
5. After marinating, drain the steaks and discard the brine. Rinse steaks and pat dry with paper towels. Remove reserved bourbon mixture from refrigerator.
6. Place steaks on the grill rack directly over medium heat; grill to desired doneness, turning once halfway through grilling. (Allow 12 to 15 minutes for medium-rare doneness [145 degree F] or 14 to 18 minutes for medium doneness [160 degree F].)
7. Remove steaks from grill and slice. Transfer to a serving platter; drizzle with the reserved bourbon mixture.

Serves 6.