The University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality and Management has teamed up with Heart of Florida United Way and brought together a perfect pairing of food and spirits.
In a UCF faculty and staff campaign effort to help raise $150,000 for United Way, Rosen College put together exclusive tasting events to join in the effort. The last event, which was being held the night before Halloween, put together a series of “Spooky Spirits and Scary Treats.”
“Making good cocktails is just like making good food: you need to know how each ingredient works and melts together with the other ingredients in the recipe,” Marissa Orlowski said. Orlowski was was the instructor of this class.
Each deliciously creative drink made by Orlowski was paired with an equally scrumptious plate of food by Dr. Cynthia Mejia, the chef behind the scenes.
Each drink correlated perfectly to its food counterpart. “It was really a collaboration between me and Dr. Mejia,” Orlowski said.
“I knew I wanted to do something with the Ruby Viniq because it’s such a pretty color and the shimmery idea really did remind me of a witch’s potion. So I created a cocktail and she worked to come up with something that would play off of it, whereas with the pumpkin risotto we started with the food and worked backward.”
Every ingredient, wine, and liquor used during the course was donated by faculty or the college itself; this allowed 100 percent to be given to the United Way campaign.
This event was open to the public and all 52 seats were filled at $25 a seat. Between four separate events, the Rosen College was able to raise $4,000, according to Genyth Travis, the event coordinator for the Rosen College.
“UCF’s campaign has already reached the $150,000 goal, and that was before we gave them our figures,” Travis said.
UCF has not only reached their goal, but surpassed it. According to liveunited.ucf.edu, UCF and United Way have a current total at $155,796.72 from 713 donors.
