SAVORY SIPS Mixologists use fresh veggies, herbs and spicy touches from the kitchen

to put a culinary spin on drinks

TALES OF THE COCKTAIL

At last summer’s Tales of the Cocktail industry

event, an egg-white-topped Lavender and
Cucumber Sour took center stage.
 BEVERAGE TRENDS

BY JACK ROBERTIELLO

t the recently opened yogurt-based drink he called the

A Copa d’Oro bar in

Santa Monica, Calif.,
customers find one of the latest
twists in the evolution of drink
making: the market menu.
Arrayed before them and listed in
great detail on the menu are all
the fresh ingredients bar owner
Vincenzo Marianella gathered
that morning at a local farmers’
market, much as chefs have been
doing for years.
Conspicuous among the usual
fruits — strawberries, grapes,
oranges and such — is a rainbow
of herbs and vegetables: basil,
thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley,
habenero peppers, wasabi, ginger,
bell peppers, cucumbers, carrots.
What happens with these farm-
fresh ingredients is quite culinary Copa d’Oro’s beverage menu lets diners
in style. Customers pick a spirit choose from Santa Monica’s best farm-market
by price, select a few fresh goods to create savory, herb-laced cocktails.
ingredients and watch as Copa
d’Oro’s bartenders custom-make their drink.
“It’s the most popular part of our menu,” says Marianella,
adding that many of the drinks are made with the most
savory of available ingredients.
A SAVORY SPECTRUM
At many other bars and restaurants across the country, the
cocktail renaissance is taking a distinctly savory turn, with
mixologists employing ingredients and culinary techniques
that expand the flavor options of mainstream drinking.
“Working with savory ingredients treats people to an
entirely different flavor spectrum they may not be used to,”
says Jamie Boudreau, bar director for Seattle’s Tini Bigs and
a spirit and cocktail consultant. “When I first started
making cocktails, my inspiration was pastry books, but then
I started looking at chefs and what flavors they make work
together.”
Bartenders who feature culinary cocktails return often
to savory touches. Last winter, at Eastern Standard
Kitchen & Drinks in Boston, Bar Manager Jackson
Cannon created a roasted-beet, tarragon and Greek-
Russian Tea Room. Another
savory concoction he created was
a gimlet with salsify puree.
JoeDoe, a restaurant in New
York City’s East Village, got some
recent press for a sweet-savory
cocktail recipe called The
Maryland Crab Boil, a blend of
Old Bay Seasoning, lime, honey
and Siembra Azul tequila.
Mixologist Gina Chersevani’s
spring menu at PS 7 in
Washington, D.C., included
Thai’s the Limit, essentially a
potable rendition of a spicy, Thai
coconut curry with gin and ginger
liqueur. Recipes like these walk a
fine line between food and drink,
COPA D’ORO
but mainly they sharpen the
appetite, which cocktails are
meant to do.
“It’s important to create a taste
matrix on your drink menu, with
somewhere for everyone to go,”
says Chersevani. “Not everybody likes the same thing, so
why not create a menu that appeals to everyone? Spicy,
fruit, sweet, bitter — you can have all these flavors.”
HISTORICALLY SAVORY
There’s no lack of precedence for savory cocktails: Gin’s
botanical mix of juniper, citrus peel, cardamom and other
aromatics makes it the savory go-to spirit in both traditional
and modern mixology. The same sorts of flavorful
components found their way into herb- and spice-infused
vermouth. The two together gave us the sublime martini,
and even if the 20th-century version differs from the
original recipe, the drink’s crisp, herbaceous pungency is the
pure definition of savory.
Other drinks, such as the Bloody Mary and its relatives
— the Bloody Caesar, made with clam broth, and the
Bloody Bull, made with beef broth — have long
maintained brunch-time appeal. In fact, as brunch
becomes an affordable way to continue dining out while
disposable income dwindles, signature Bloody Marys are
coming on strong, with regional flavors, herb-infused

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BEVERAGE TRENDS
MARY GETS AROUND
Signature versions (or entire menus) of Bloody Marys are a great
starting point for savory cocktails, and regional variations abound. Plenty
of places mix up the vodka flavors and spices, but why not use other
vegetable juices, like carrot, cucumber or mixed greens, or try shifting
the flavors seasonally?
> Star of the Sea Bloody Mary
With cucumber-and-dill-infused vodka and a freshly shucked East
Coast oyster — Buttermilk Channel, Brooklyn, N.Y.
> Wobble Stopper Bloody Mary
A hint of porter fortifies this homemade Bloody Mary, made with a
tomato-, corn- and black-bean-infused Svedka vodka, garnished with
our house-smoked bacon and a salty black-bean-and-corn rim
— The Fifty/50, Chicago
> Bayside Bloody Maria
With Sauza Hornitos tequila, Major Peter’s Hot & Spicy Bloody Mary
Mix, garnished with lime, celery and jalapeño-stuffed olive
— Bayside, Newport Beach, Calif.
> The Bloody Gia
House-infused hot-pepper vodka, spiked with a shot of Guinness,
garnished with hot, pickled okra, sweet banana pepper, pepperoncini,
stuffed Spanish olive, cipollini onion and a caperberry, rimmed with
celery salt — Café Lily, Decatur, Ga.
> Hari Kari
A Far East version with sake instead of vodka, plus wasabi and pickled
ginger — The Heights, Washington D.C.
> Danish Bloody Mary
Aquavit, fresh fennel and a marinated white anchovy
— Prune, New York City
> Schnockered Bloody Mary
With Plymouth gin and house-made pickled vegetables
— The Hungry Cat, Hollywood and Santa Barbara, Calif.
vodkas and house-blended spice rubs for
rimming (see sidebar, above).
In the past few years, as bartenders have
focused on reviving classic recipes, recreating
bitters and exploring fresh ingredients, fruits
and sweeter herbs like mint took center stage.
Old savory drinks like the Negroni, made with
gin, bitter Campari and sweet vermouth,
reawakened the need for bracing flavors, and
gradually, the occasional rosemary sprig and
pickled-caperberry garnish gave way to sage or
108 FLAVOR & THE MENU Summer 2009
parsley muddles, vegetable purees and other
kitchen inspirations.
Chersevani, Marianella and others cite the
kitchen as a prime mover in this trend, as bars
in fine-dining restaurants have greater access
to back-of-house ingredients and techniques;
for Chersevani’s Thai-inspired drink, a food
processor and chinoise are essential.
Marianella learned his skills, among
other places, at The Palace restaurant in
Los Angeles, where he’d visit the kitchen
for inspiration. One of those kitchen
rambles, on behalf of a customer seeking
something really different, yielded his most-
intriguing cocktail: the citrusy, gin-based
Sour Kraut, made with Dijon mustard and
marmalade, which just happened to be
shelved together.
SAVORIES CATCH ON
Marianella likes savory for the variety of flavors
available, from parsley’s earthiness to
cucumber’s fresh sweetness, but he warns
against misuse.
“You need to balance the flavors, whatever
you use; that’s the most important thing,” he
says. “You can’t just put a cucumber in a
cocktail.”
In the past two years, even chain-restaurant
beverage execs have acknowledged the
attraction of the garden flavors of cucumber,
now a standard cocktail ingredient in many
operations.
“Working with cucumbers is fairly easy, and
a pretty good selling point for those wary of
vegetables in their drinks,” says Borys Saciuk,
head bartender at restaurant Michael Mina in
San Francisco. “Female customers seem to like
the idea of cucumber in drinks, and its mild,
slightly sweet and refreshing flavors are fun to
work with.”
In addition to using earthy herbs and
vegetables, bartenders are incorporating such
ingredients as vinegars, fruit-and-vinegar
gastriques and fruit-vinegar shrubs to get a
tangy flavor without the usual citrus. The latter
two are especially popular with bartenders who
prefer to use local produce throughout the year.
Saciuk says that because in-season fruits can
vary so dramatically in ripeness and flavor, he
sometimes poaches a batch and reduces the
remaining liquid with salt and spices to dash
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into the glass with the fruit when muddling a
drink — instant savory.
More savory spirits, such as allspice dram
(pepper-and-spice-infused rum) and malty
Genever gin, have made something of a
comeback as bartenders look for old
ingredients to provide a modern punch. Even
a bit of fire has worked its way into drinks;
one of Boudreau’s more popular cocktails is
the Rubicon, which calls for rosemary flamed
with Chartreuse.
SUBTLY SAVORY
Savory touches need not be as dramatic as
Marianella’s Sour Kraut. Saciuk finds subtle
influences help nudge already-interesting
recipes closer to the savory line in drinks such
as the A-Pear-Tif, in which he spikes pear
liqueur and Champagne with ginger and green
Szechuan peppercorns and sometimes uses
pickled ramps as a garnish.
Working in the San Francisco cocktail
scene, which already is associated closely
with culinary trends, allows Saciuk greater
latitude in creating savory options. Even the
judicious use of salt can add a certain savory
quality; a little salt “lifts and balances” the
ginger syrup he makes, rounding out its
flavor profile.
At New York City’s Tabla, the Masala Mary,
created by Executive Chef Floyd Cardoz, was
designed to match the Indian-inspired cuisine
with different levels of acidity, flavor and spice.
The drink calls for a paste made from
vegetables, coriander, red mustard seed, pepper
and other spices; it’s combined with tomato
juice and vodka and garnished with house-
pickled onions.
Tabla’s Kachumber Kooler — a nod to
kachumba chopped salads — combines
muddled green chile, cucumber and cilantro
with gin, lime juice and a dash of simple
syrup. In this and in the Masala Mary, limited
sweetness allows for greater depth of flavor.
“We didn’t want these to be like those
candied cocktails you often see; we wanted a
savory feel and balance,” says Kevin Richer,
service and beverage director at Tabla. The
Cooler, a combination of tangy fresh cilantro,
fiery chiles and cooling cucumbers, along with
the bright acidity of lime, is a drink with
layers of flavor.
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BEVERAGE TRENDS
BUZZ-FREE FLAVOR
Virgin Marys and sugary soft drinks are passé choices for today’s
teetotalers. Bar menus now feature a range of savory flavors among their
non-alcoholic selections, which include grown-up soda pops bubbling with
juniper-berry, lemon-grass or gingerroot essence and herbal lemonades
with muddles and garnishes of fresh basil, sage, rosemary or mint.
Whether purchased from outside purveyors like GuS (Grown-up Soda)
and the Dry Soda Co. or concocted in-house as signature soft drinks,
buzz-free beverages are capturing the attention of mixologists and
consumers alike.
Carbonation, water and ready-made syrups are an easy recipe for creating
beverages onsite for customers who eschew alcohol. But many bar chefs
prefer to create their own nonalcoholic drinks with fresh herbs and
vegetables. Such savories are a great way to keep the drink menu fresh
with seasonal ingredients.
Mocktails at Eastern Standard Kitchen & Bar in Boston include the
Sophisticated Lady, with cranberry and cucumber; Stormy Monday,
combining lime and bitters in ginger beer; and Alexander’s Delight,
featuring textured cayenne and mocha.
Pranna Restaurant in New York City offers a signature lemonade made
with Calamansi honey, kaffir lime leaves, fresh-squeezed lemon juice and
water as well as house-made Lemon-grass Thai Basil Soda.
In Miami, Michael Schwartz at Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink menus
homemade Cherry Rosemary Soda and a Ginger-Lemon-grass Ale. On
the West Coast, specialty drinks at Seattle’s Café Flora include Rosemary
Lemonade and Cringer (cranberry-ginger cider).
Adult versions of the Shirley Temple just won’t cut it on the bar menu
these days. If there’s no mixologist on premises, start with ready-made
beverages or simple solutions like flavored seltzer with a splash of
bitters and citrus or a glass of icy, gin-free tonic sporting a cucumber
spear or spring of mint. Look to the season and the kitchen for other
easy inspirations.
— Linda Skinner
“Whenever we develop new drinks, we try
to match our cuisine, with a balance and depth
of flavors,” says Richer.
DRINKING THE FAT
For every gentle, savory touch in modern
cocktailing, there’s an equally daring step into
culinary, or even scientific, technique. Take
“fat-washing,” which entails infusing the liquid
fat from flavorful ingredients like bacon or foie
gras into a spirit. You can’t get much more
Summer 2009 FLAVOR & THE MENU 109
 BEVERAGE TRENDS

savory than that, and the kitchen. But at full-service restaurants,

technique has caught fire cocktail development makes the most sense
in the past few years. when the kitchen is integrated.
For instance, in the “For me, it’s always been about
Hudson, created for the complementing the kitchen,” says Chersevani.
biennial 2007 Sherry Indeed, she looks to chefs like PS 7’s Peter
Cocktail Competition, Smith for help as well as inspiration. She
Don Lee of New York recently pickled baby mangoes without any
City’s PDT infused predetermined drink in mind, but Smith’s
bourbon with seared foie notion of serving them with vanilla sauce
gras and mixed it with made her think of a sidecar tweaked with the
East India Solera Sherry pickled fruit and vanilla. “I wouldn’t have
and cherry syrup. thought of it without working with him.”
In another meat- Because savory cocktailing expands the
meets-drink example, number of fresh ingredients a bartender needs
Adam Seger of Chicago’s to control, Chersevani recommends that
Nacional 27 infuses those who want to expand their drink-making
Spanish ham with cognac skills complete a stint in the kitchen. She also
and adds fresh lemon juice suggests that more thought be given to the
and cinnamon-spiked bar’s mise en place.
honey to create the salty, Advanced skills and careful planning were
KATHY CASEY

smoky Ham and Cheese. certainly in play when she froze lettuce-and-
Tini Bigs’ Boudreau has tomato infusions into cubes to be served with
served drinks made with gin in a bacon-rimmed glass for a drinkable
Mixologist Kathy Casey bacon-washed bourbon and amaro, but he’s BLT. Others suggest spending more time
flavors simple syrup with taken fat washing beyond meat. His Carnival poring over cookbooks for inspiration. And,
coconut, mint, red pepper
Car starts with buttered popcorn, infused into of course, tinkering with techniques like fat-
flakes and cilantro for a
mojito that matches the cognac. The rest of the drink is a twist on the washing call for more than a brief
tang of Thai foods. classic sidecar, but instead of using a standard introduction to HACCP (hazard analysis of
sweetener, he adds cotton candy to the glass, critical control points) standards.
creating drinkable carnival fare. Boudreau warns that overly ambitious
mixologists easily can take the wrong step
KITCHEN INTERACTION when turning to the savory side. “When you’re
In drinks-only establishments, where these working with savory herbs, you have to put a
experiments tend to blossom, bartenders little more thought into your cocktail, or you
aren’t required to match what comes from the can go awfully wrong awfully fast.”
But, he points out, as long as there’s
mounting competition to make one’s
name in the increasingly star-driven
TAK E -AWAY T I P S bartending business, the drive to create
something new and different means no
TAKE IT EASY: No need to be heavy-handed with ingredient is off-limits. Take the
flavor; a splash of fruity vinegar, a dash of salt or a experts’ advice: Make friends
cucumber muddle is all it takes to up the savory with the kitchen, and mix
quotient for basic drinks
with care.
HAIL MARY: The Bloody Mary is eminently adaptable
to many liquors and flavor additions; create a signature
version to match your cuisine, switching out the usual JACK ROBERTIELLO writes
vodka for sake, tequila, gin or another spirit that works about spirits, cocktails, wine,
with your menu beer and food from Brooklyn,
GO HOME GROWN: Look to local farmers’ markets for N.Y.; he can be e-mailed at
savory fresh herbs and vegetables to inspire regional bar applejak@earthlink.net.
beverages; be sure to tout the producers on the drink menu
PLYMOUTH GIN

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