When I speak with Matthew Biancaniello on the phone one recent Tuesday, he’s busy picking fresh Cuban oregano from his Venice garden and packing up to hit the Santa Barbara Farmers Market, where he plans to shop for the pop-up bar at Sama Sama Kitchen that evening. “For me, it’s about curating everything so that I know where everything came from,” said Biancaniello, a self-taught mixologist who once owned his own bee colony, frequently forages in the Santa Monica Mountains, and visits at least five different farmers’ markets a week for ingredient inspiration.
Eat Your Drink is Biancaniello’s gorgeous new book of culinary cocktails that showcases what he’s learned since starting at the Library Bar in 2008. Biancaniello brought a mad-scientist-with-a-green-thumb kind of energy to the downtown Los Angeles bar and revamped their menu completely, infusing their drinks with fresh Santa Monica Farmers Market finds.
“My mission is to be constantly creating, finding unusual fruits and herbs that I can store in the memory banks of the cocktail enthusiast forever,” Biancaniello explains in the introduction of his book, which is organized like courses in a menu, beginning with Amuse Bouche, such as the blood-orange cheese and cracker with fig-bourbon jelly, and ending with After Dinner Drinks.
