Patent application on deep fried beer?

Previously, IPBiz had noted Bill Geist's discussion of "deep fried butter" at the Texas State Fair. Now, The Economist mentions:

DEEP-FRIED beer may sound scrumptious, but is it patentable? Mark Zable, an inventive Texan, thinks it is. To protect his novel production process, which involves encasing the alcohol in batter and dunking it in a fryer, he recently applied for a patent. He wants to profit if others exploit his beery brainwave.

No hits on the published US application database for Zable's invention as of yet, but something to look forward to.

And, don't forget America's Test Kitchen using vodka in shrimp tempura. Shrimp Tempura
But, see also US 20090304862, BATTER AND BATTER-COATED FOOD PRODUCTS, including claim 10: The method according to claim 1, wherein the batter further comprises ethanol. ATK as copyists?


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On deep fried butter:
"CBS Sunday Morning" on July 18, 2010: complete recycling from the past?

King of the Deep Fryer, Albert Gonzales, Jr. :

AG:
The first time we won the fair had an Elvis theme and we won for fried peanut butter, banana and jelly sandwiches. Last year I won for fried butter. This year we went back to something simple but we hope is really good. We're doing a fried chocolate which is like a brownie that's stuffed with white chocolate, maraschino cherries and pecans and we dump that whole thing into a chocolate cake batter and deep fry it.


(...)


I really, really liked the deep-fried butter. It sounds gross but it's really more like a biscuit with a buttery inside.