University of Delaware grad-turned-bartender wins biggest prize in food and drink

You wouldn't think a jury-rigged ethnobotany program at the University of Delaware would lead to the pinnacle of cocktail fame in America: But here we are.

Danny Childs, a bartender and onetime server at Wilmington mainstay Catherine Rooney's who first discovered his passion for foraged and hyperlocal ingredients as an anthropology and biology student in Delaware, has just received a James Beard Foundation Media Award for the writing the year's best "beverage recipe" book. Which is to say, the best cocktail book.

Among chefs and cookbook authors, of course, the Beards are the biggest and most prominent awards in the country — often the launching point to a new stage in a chef or bartender's career.

Childs won for his book "Slow Drinks: A Field Guide to Foraging and Fermenting Seasonal Sodas, Botanical Cocktails, Homemade Wines, and More," after first gaining prominence for his foraged-ingredient cocktails at The Farm and Fisherman Tavern, a farm-to-fork restaurant and bar in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

There, I have imbibed a wild and almost agricultural-tasting cocktail made with mezcal and celery soda — a house-fermented "ginger-bug' soda of Childs' own invention — that made me chase down its maker and demand how and why such a thing could exist and taste as it does.

"Slow Drinks,'' the book that just got named the best of its kind in America, is a meticulously researched tome that is unlike almost any other cocktail book you're likely to have encountered. The book is part recipe book, part science lesson, part love letter to the seasonal bounty of South Jersey and the mid-Atlantic.

Arguably, Childs has also managed to hack the mainframe on a question that's been puzzling bartenders for ages: "How do you make a cocktail that's truly local?"

It was a path that started, Childs told us, after University of Delaware anthorpologist Peter G. Roe — sometimes apparently nicknamed Delaware's "Indiana Jones" — encouraged him to travel to study indigenous medicinal plants with tribes in Chile and Peru, and to later study those compounds in Delaware for potential future medical use.

While researching local plants in Peru, Childs also got his first cocktail experience at a local cantina — two passions he eventually wove together to make cocktails using foraged local ingredients.

"Slow Drinks" is the result. Childs, now an independent bar consultant, put together the book with his wife Katie, a photographer and fellow alumnus of both UD and Catherine Rooney's who worked with Danny over months to create the photography of each potable invention or hyperseasonal ingredient.

"Words cannot express how Katie and I are feeling right now," wrote Childs on his Instagram account after the book was nominated for a James Beard Award. "Slow Drinks is a collaborative project that we started in 2017 where we could combine our passions of beverages, foraging, gardening, history, storytelling, and photography. Watching this idea grow, spread around the globe, and inspire others has been absolutely surreal."

The award for "Slow Drinks" was announced on Saturday, June 8, before the main culinary awards ceremony Monday, June 10.

After the award, Childs declared himself "beyond words," and then proved it.

"We did it, Katie" was the only other thing he had to say.

Delaware chefs set a precedent, but Maryland walked away with the Mid-Atlantic prize

This year did not repeat the highs of last year for our region, when Philly walked off with seemingly most of the top awards, including best restaurant in the nation.

But unlike last year, which snubbed Delaware and New Jersey, Delaware still has a little more to brag about this time.

For the first time ever, a Delaware chef was a "Best Chef" finalist in the Mid-Atlantic this year, as the ceremony rolled out Monday night. Indeed Matthew Kern, the chef and co-owner of Fenwick Island's One Coastal, was the first Delaware chef in the James Beard Awards' 34-year history to be named a finalist in any culinary category.

"I'm just in awe," he told Delaware Online/The News Journal in April, about the honor for his farm-to table restaurant devoted to the produce of the Delmarva Peninsula and beyond: farms like East View Farms in nearby Frankford, and Chesterfield Heirlooms in Maryland.

James Beard nod for Delaware: For the first time ever, a Delaware chef is a finalist for the biggest prize in food

But it was Maryland, this year, who ran away with the eventual prize.

Chef Harley Peet of Bas Rouge in Easton, Maryland, 90 minutes from New Castle County, walked off with the "Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic" laurels this year.

Delaware Online food writer Patricia Talorico, who visited the restaurant last month, declared Bas Rouge a "top-notch dining destination," praising its "polished adaptations of traditional Viennese and European classics" that ranged from classic fish and chips to caviar-topped salmon tartare and an airy gnocchi tucked into a bed of springtime morels and ramps.

Other regional chefs and bartenders to be honored include Philadelphia's David Suro, owner of currently out-of-commision restaurant Tequilas, who won the "Beverage without Recipes " award with co-author Gary Paul Nabhan for their book "Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals."

Philadelphia Chinatown's decades-old Vietnam Restaurant won an America's Classic Award for being, well, a Philadelphia classic. (We can vouch, personally, for the seasoned savor of the meat and toothsomeness of noodles in their long-simmered pho.)

Philadelphia chefs and restaurateurs were also honored for "Leadership," a new non-culinary category at the Beards.

Honorees included owner Muhammad Abdul-Hadi of Down North Pizza, whose North Philly pizzeria serves spicy-sweet Detroit-style slices and hires chefs who've previously been in prison, including head chef Michael Carter.

Previous Down North coverage: He was a prison cook. Now he's a nationally lauded pizza chef building an empire

Christa Barfield of West Chester's FarmerJawn, which claims to be the "the largest Black woman-owned regenerative organic produce farm in America," was likewise honored for "Emerging Leadership."

The best restaurant in the country this year, according to the Beards, was on the other coast in Portland, Oregon. Akkapong "Earl'' Ninsom's prix-fixe Langbaan restaurant, offering an ever-changing feast of regional and creative and otherwise rarely-seen Thai dishes, took home that honor.

The best chef was Michael Rafidi, who serves the food of his Palestinian heritage at Albi in Washington, D.C. He dedicated his award "to Palestine and to all the Palestinian people out there, whether it’s here or in Palestine or all over the world.”

Matthew Korfhage is business and development reporter in the Delaware region covering all things related to land and money, and maybe also tacos. Send tips and insults to [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Delaware grad Danny Childs wins James Beard for best cocktail book