Butcher & Booze Shares 3 Magical Meat Pairings for Your Most Prized Bottles 

 Butcher & Booze is a new higher end butcher shop and liquor store on the ground floor of Glendale’s mixed-use ONYX building. The brothers behind the business carry a selection of meat that would make most steakhouses envious, including deluxe Wagyu beef and Kurobuta pork chops. Luxurious marinated kebabs play well with America's largest Armenian population. They also curate an alcohol selection that includes limited edition spirits and meat-friendly wines. 

The Butcher

Aram Galystan and Anthony Suarez

Aram Galystan and Anthony Suarez

Butcher & Booze has two fairly unlikely owners. The Galystan brothers both worked in the medical business, Aram as an operations manager at a manufacturing company, and Alexander as a medical administrator. They had no professional kitchen or spirits experience, but their collective passion resulted in one of Glendale’s most unique culinary businesses. Alexander selects their wines and Aram handles meat and spirits.“I’d always barbecue and cook stuff and we always tried to hunt down the best quality meats possible,” Aram Galystan says. “We used to order online or drive to places to get what we were looking for. Then the idea came up: why not do it locally for us and the community, the City of Glendale?” They hired two butchers with chef experience, Anthony Suarez and Joseph “Joe” Cordero, who contribute to offerings like Wagyu burgers and hot dogs, house-made Italian pork sausage, and salami with pistachios and lemon zest.

The Booze

Liquor has also been a serious side hobby. The brothers collect, drink and pair whiskey, bourbon, Scotch, Cognac, wine, and Champagne, to name just but a few. Aram is particularly enamored with whiskey; he estimates his personal collection at 400 bottles. As luck would have it, while the brothers worked to open a butcher shop, a liquor license became available for sale, which allowed the Galystans to combine two interests.

“If you’re a major brand, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to land up on our shelves,” Aram says. “We don’t sell names, but we sell quality.” He’s particularly proud of their vintage Macallan whiskys from the 1970s, rare bourbon bottles - Booker’s Rye and Van Winkle Family Reserve Rye   – and limited edition Yamazaki and Hibiki whisky sets from Japan. In a nod to democracy, if a customer suggests a bottle, Aram and Alexander will sample a bottle. Spirits that pass muster join their line-up.

 

The biggest challenge is deciding which meats, bottles and products to sell. “We both need to agree on as far as taste, quality of the product, where it comes from, how it’s raised, background of the farm,” Aram says.  At Butcher & Booze, flavor is an important factor, but it’s not everything.

 

Magical Pairing to Savor

Aram Galystan recommended three meat and alcohol pairings, including his preferred meat cooking method. Of course, every cut and bottle is available for sale at Butcher & Booze.

Wagyu BMS 89 New York + Wilderness Small Batch Bourbon

BMS stands for the Beef Marbling Score. The higher the number, the more marbling you get. I would put [the Wagyu BMS 89 New York steak] on a charcoal grill and just give it a good sear on both sides, about a minute and a half to two minutes on each side, and then cook it for a couple minutes off direct heat to give it that perfect medium…I would go with Bourbon.... Wilderness Trail small batch. Both of them offer robust flavors. New York’s not known to be tender meat, but is very flavorful meat. You want to pair it with something that has strong flavor as well, not to kill the Bourbon or the meat, so they’ll balance each other out perfectly. Wilderness Small batch is a recipe of high rye content, so it has very good sweetness, some rye spiciness, so a very well balanced bourbon.

 

Wagyu Tenderloin Filet Mignon + Chateau Montelena Cabernet

Both would be mellow in flavor and you don’t want to overpower the filet because they don’t have much fat. Wagyu filets probably have the most fat you’ll find on the market, but still they’re not ribeye or New York. I would put it in the oven for 15 minutes and then once the internal temperature hits 120, I would sear it for one and a half minutes on each side and I would top that off with one of our compound butters. I would do the bone marrow butter. A nice medium bodied wine would go perfectly with that filet.

 

Chicken Thighs + Glenallachie 12-Year Scotch

I’ll do chicken thighs with our in-house seasoning. The blend is salt, pepper, a little bit of paprika and cumin, some granulated onion, and chipotle powder. Cook that in the oven for 20 minutes and then broil it for five minutes to give it nice, crispy skin. Do that with Scotch, Glenallachie 12-year-old, because of the sweetness of the sherry cask. It’s a very good Scotch, currently one of my favorites, a very under the radar product.

Pairing, Spirits, WineJoshua Luriewhiskey, rye, cabernet sauvignon, pairingsComment