Does alcohol disappear during cooking? A burning question answered

Early on in my kitchen days, I made the desserts for a boyfriend’s family Thanksgiving feast. It was around the era when I owned – and actually cooked from – “The Campbell’s Soup Cookbook” I think it was called.

But for this dessert, I went all out. My mom had given me a copy of a book called “Historic Virginia Inns – A Cook’s Tour.” I already had a couple of favorites from it – the peach cheesecake, for example, from Martha Washington Inn in Abingdon. For Thanksgiving dessert, I turned to a recipe called “Mother’s Apple Crisp,” from Jordan Hollow Farm Inn in the Shenandoah Valley.

With a name like that, how could it not be wholesome? I was sure his mother would love me. The only questionable line item in the recipe called for rum or apple schnapps – optional of course – and of course I added it.

Which was an embarrassment when I found that a few of the guests were strict teetotalers. And one was a recovering alcoholic. I was as deeply embarrassed as a 20-something could be.

Later I learned that if the guest list includes those who don’t drink for whatever reason, it’s best to leave the alcohol out. The vague notion that most of us have that it cooks or evaporates off is simply not true. That’s the case even if you proudly set a plate of flaming cherries jubilee on the table.

There’s a big science-y explanation for why. It has something to do with the different boiling points of water and alcohol and it’s really too early for all that. The best explanation I’ve ever read is from a slim paperback of kitchen miscellanea titled “What Einstein Told His Cook.” Apparently, the USDA and a couple of left coast universities studied this matter closely. After preparing "two Burgundy-laden dishes similar to boeuf bourguignon and coq au vin, plus a casserole of scalloped oysters made with sherry" the researchers "found that anywhere from 4 to 49 percent of the original alcohol remained in the finished dishes, depending on the type of food and the cooking method.

“Higher temperatures, longer cooking times, uncovered pans, wider pans, top-of-the-stove rather than closed-oven cooking – all conditions that increase the general amount of evaporation of both water and alcohol – were found, not surprisingly, to increase the loss of alcohol.”

So, for example, if you toiled over a recipe for six servings of coq au vin (yum!) using 3 cups of wine, and if about half of the alcohol diffuses during a 30-minute simmer (like the wise professors found), every serving would have the amount of alcohol found in 2 ounces of wine.

So. Cheers! Or not.

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