The 5 best things this golf travel writer ate or drank last month

As a globe-trotting writer covering golf, travel and all things food and drink – and accumulating 110,000 frequent flyer miles by 2025 – GOLF contributor Shaun Tolson has visited some of the world’s most famous golf clubs, resorts and best-kept secrets. Below, he shares some of his favorite bites and sips from his most recent travels in Clubhouse Eats.

Pork Milanese at Isabella’s Kitchen at Grayhawk Golf Club

When I think of Phoenix, Arizona, neither my brain nor my taste buds think of Italian food. Usually I’m thinking about impressive tequila collections or reminiscing about world-class tacos – both of which I’ve enjoyed over the years.

However, on my most recent trip to the Valley of the Sun, I was fortunate enough to eat at Isabella’s Kitchen at Grayhawk Golf Club. More specifically, I was lucky enough to order the Pork Milanese.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking. It is a pork chop, pounded thin and deep fried. How memorable can it really be? To start with, the plate of food placed in front of me was huge. I’m always one to put quality over quantity, but this was still impressive. Moreover, an excellent Milanese is as much about the fresh salad that adorns the meat as it is about the protein itself; and Isabella’s mix of arugula, pickled red onions, fennel and grated Parmesan cheese – all tossed in a bright lemon vinaigrette – was phenomenal.

Tacos at Tingum on 5

Speaking of tacos… During a recent visit to the Abaco Club in the Bahamas, I heard talk about a taco truck parked near the beach, just past the fifth hole of the golf course. I also heard that those tacos had a cult following among the club’s members. Honestly, that’s all I wanted to hear.

I jumped in my golf cart and drove down the front nine. It took some time – I drove almost a mile – but I finally arrived at the Tingum food truck. If I hadn’t already had tacos on my mind, the cheese-crusted lobster quesadilla would almost certainly have ended up on my plate. But I reminded myself that the truck tacos were the treasure.

Classic options like grilled chicken and blackened fish were interspersed with more creative offerings, like buffalo shrimp (with pickled onions, jalapeno ranch and coconut slaw) or dry-rubbed flank steak (with fried cherry peppers and a cheesy crema). The steak was recommended by the chef, so that was enough: two steaks and one blackened fish. Both were as good as the hype and proved that some things are worth going the extra mile – literally.

The Saint James cocktail

While staying at the Abaco Club, I saddled up to the bar at the private residential community’s new Bay Club. I immediately spotted a familiar bottle: Aqua Perfecta from St George Spirits, a basil eau de vie that is delicious but, from my experiences at home, somewhat challenging to mix. I asked the head bartender, James Vil, how he typically incorporates it into drinks, but discovered he hadn’t tried using it yet.

One sip later, he was willing to give it a try.

Vil thought for a moment, then pulled out a cocktail shaker and promptly poured in two ounces of the obnoxious eau de vie, which immediately took me by surprise. (On the spirit company’s website, the few cocktail recipes that use Aqua Perfecta never consider it the base spirit. Not Vil. He would make it the star.) The young bartender then added an ounce of lemon juice, a half-ounce of blackberry liqueur and a quarter-ounce of agave nectar.

After shaking the brew vigorously, he took out a small sample to test the taste, then double strained the rest into a coupe glass and pushed it my way. “Let me know what you think.”

Sweet and subtly tart, the sour-style cocktail was pleasantly herbaceous, albeit in an understated way. It seemed like the perfect libation for an early evening in the Bahamas. “It’s good,” I told him, nodding as I took another sip.

“Now you have to name it,” he replied.

Luckily, I discovered it almost as quickly as Vil decided on the drink’s recipe. “St. James,” I explained.

He smiled.

Negroni at the Orient Express La Minerva

If nothing catches my eye on a cocktail menu, my favorite drink order is a Negroni. That has been the case for years. I love a good old fashioned, but I’m picky about the way they’re made, and if I’m being completely honest, I make a damn good one at home. So I’m picky.

A Negroni, on the other hand, is almost foolproof. Equal measures of gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, the proportions are simple and consistent. Sure, I’ll lean a little more into my gin pours when I make one at home, but a standard Negroni will never disappoint.

So you can imagine my delight when my host at the Orient Express La Minerva in Rome asked if I was a Negroni fan. The La Minerva bar, he told me, is the best in town; and a specific brand of vermouth is the bar’s secret weapon.

Unlike Carpano Antica Formula – a sweet vermouth for boozy, alcoholic cocktails – I found Mancino Rosso Vermouth to be more savory-sweet (think sun-dried tomatoes). That bodes well in a bitter drink like the Negroni. The drink I was served was rich and robust, and although the bright citrus notes in Campari were less present, a touch of lemon oil with a twist added just the right amount of acidity.

How much better was it than a Negroni made with a more common sweet vermouth? Let’s just say that when I got home, I went out of my way to find a bottle of Mancino and shelled out $50 for it, which is a lot for vermouth. But it’s worth every penny, as long as you’re a fellow Negroni lover.

Farwell shot aboard La Dolce Vita

At the end of the Orient Express’s first wave tour of Italy, just before the end of the year, I approached the train’s bar manager, Giuseppe Carillo, and asked him if there was a common shot or drink that Italians would drink together to bid each other a loving farewell. It seemed only appropriate to raise a glass with him and his team after four fantastic days on board the luxury rail ship La Dolce Vita.

The question had barely left my lips when Carillo nodded and grabbed a cocktail shaker. Into it he poured a steady stream of Campari. Seriously, he poured a lot of Campari. To this he added a generous dash of balsamic vinegar and then a dash of salt. If I didn’t know he was doing a round for his entire team, I would have thought I was about to get punked.

After filling the container with ice and shaking it vigorously, the young bartender poured a row of ruby ​​red shots. We all grabbed one and sipped it or downed it, and what I tasted was unlike anything I’d had before. A pleasant mix of bitterness, sweetness and saltiness, it evoked Italian flavors and the Italian method of preparing them: simple construction, yet surprising depth.

If the recording has a name, Carillo never shared it. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to recreate without needing a recipe. Admittedly, I haven’t quite mastered the proportions yet, but each attempt was tasty in its own way. That’s a “worthy”Hello!” of itself.