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Barmoire

Cocktails of the Year 2012

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The DFW cocktail scene has come a long way in the last two years, and as many a bartender knows, I’ve been no stranger to it. Restaurants now launch with bar programs no longer a second thought, the qualities of ice and citrus oils are strongly considered, and drinkers once keen on vodka-and-Red-Bull are growing more adventurous palates.

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Some of the local drinks unveiled in 2012, these ones at Dallas’ Five Sixty. At middle left, Rolling Fog Over Mount Fuji; at middle right, Locked and Loaded.

Our craft cocktail architects have, in the last year, designed menus built on the shoulders of the past – reintroducing old classics, embellishing and remodeling, thinking up creations of their own.  Luckily, I have taken it upon myself to sample many of these libations on behalf of the greater good. I have, as they say, taken one for the team.

I can’t claim to have sampled every drink out there. I’m just one man, for god’s sakes. (Thanks to all who sacrificed themselves to join me for the effort.) And I have my own tastes and habitats: In general, my spirits of choice are gin, whiskey, tequila, rum, gasoline and vodka, in that order. Ha ha, vodka – I kid you, I kid you.

But as we say Peace Out to 2012, I leave you with my top 10 favorite local discoveries of the past year. Ah, what the heck: In the spirit of the annum, let’s just make it 12.

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12. MEXICALI BLUES, Tate’s, Dallas (J.W. Tate)

Blending the glamour of aged tequila and house-made grenadine with the smokiness of mezcal, this is Salma Hayek in a coupe, bold and feminine. The borderland babe, named for a Grateful Dead song, is garnished with a palm-tree V of thyme planted in a floating lime-slice island, with a muddle of pepper upping the Baja heat.

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11. STRIPPER SWEAT – Cosmo’s Bar & Lounge, Dallas (Jackson Tran)

“Somebody asked me to make them a drink called Stripper Sweat. I think they had just come from a strip club,” says Tran, adept with flavor even as he churns out the shots and mixed drinks usually favored by the crowd at this Lakewood dive-bar gem. Partial to pairing vodka with the elderflower sweet of St. Germain, he gave complexity to this summery play on vodka-cranberry by mixing vanilla vodka with cranberry, St. Germain and the earthy licorice punch of Fernet. Shaken with an orange wedge, the pulpy, apricot-like mixture is poured over ice, frothy as a raspberry fizz.

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10. COLONEL SANDERS – Sissy’s Southern Kitchen, Dallas (Chase Streitz)

When Streitz, the beverage director at Sissy’s, was asked to design happy-hour drinks around the Henderson Avenue restaurant’s most popular spirits, he spun simple gold from Makers 46, honeying it up with Benedictine and splash of orange bitters over crushed ice.  The drink’s initially aggression softens as the ice melts and muddles the accompanying orange slice, a pleasant pre- or post-dinner relaxer.

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9. THE PEOPLE’S OLD FASHIONED – The People’s Last Stand, Dallas (Omar Yeefoon)

Though Yeefoon no longer pours at this Mockingbird Station bar, he left his mark on the place with this luscious take on the classic whiskey cocktail that couples maple syrup with Rittenhouse rye along with a touch of Angostura bitters and flame-drawn orange oils.  The result: A strong whiskey handshake with a rush of almost tamarind-y sweetness.

8. ROLLING FOG OVER MOUNT FUJI, Five Sixty, Dallas (Lee Hefter)

This gorgeous and aptly named drink at Wolfgang Puck’s Asian-themed restaurant atop Reunion Tower also has depth – and properly made, the illusion of height. Japanese Hibiki 12 whiskey is shaken with Aperol, lemon, simple syrup and egg white, then poured into a small fishbowl of a glass. A mountainous ice slab juts out from the foamy egg-white surface, towering over the pink-hued landscape beneath and evoking the drink’s name. It has the taste and feel of sherbet, with an herbal Aperol finish.

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7. FIG MANHATTAN, Tate’s, Dallas (J.W. Tate)

This classic re-do land-rushes the prairie of your tongue with a bracing yet savory sweetness, the house-made fig syrup ably enhancing the Uptown bar’s orangey dark brown blend of Rittenhouse 100 rye, Cocchi D’Torino vermouth and Angostura bitters. It’s rich, not cloying, with a fig essence that elevates rather than just flavors this classic.

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6. TINY’S FAREWELL, The Cedars Social, Dallas (Mike Steele)

Basically, Steele wanted to make a stirred tiki drink, one without the citrus juice that calls for shaking or the mounds of crushed ice that typically characterize these Caribbean-styled cocktails. He produced this blend of Cana Brava rum, Dolin dry vermouth, Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, Kronan Swedish punsch, pineapple syrup and tiki bitters. A diaphanous lemony yellow, it’s honey-sweet with a fruity frontal assault and minty finish underscored by the warm essence of rum. The coup de grace is a swath of grapefruit ignited to draw out the oils and citrusy aroma. The story behind the name? “I always wanted to have a tiki bar,” Steele says. “I figured I’d have this really huge guy behind the bar named Tiny with really big arms, crushing ice. But when I made this drink, it was like, `Tiny, we don’t need you anymore.’ “

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5. EMERSON, Hibiscus, Dallas (Grant Parker)

OK, nothing fancy here – just Parker’s take on a little-known classic that deserves wider recognition. The traditional Emerson is gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur and lime. Parker, the low-key force behind this Henderson Avenue restaurant’s bar, subs the sweeter and less botanical Old Tom gin and uses the spicy, herbaceous Carpano Antica as his vermouth. The result is a drink that starts fruity (especially cherry), but then U-turns with a dazzling chocolate-and-spice finish. “During the cold season, the Antica gives it a nice cinnamon flavor,” Parker says. “And when the weather turns hot, it’s a nice aperitif.”

4. LOCKED AND LOADED, Five Sixty, Dallas (Lee Hefter)

“That reminds me of breakfast, man,” says Five Sixty bartender Casey Griggs of Locked And Loaded. “That reminds me of some pancakes.” This drink created by Los Angeles-based Lee Hefter, Wolfgang Puck’s right-hand chef, is a buffet of bourbon, maple syrup, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth, lemon juice, egg white, rhubarb bitters and a sly rinse of Laphroig. Its hue is somewhere between butterscotch and Chimay Triple, and the bourbon is purposely understated, with a creamy finish marked by rhubarb candy sweetness.

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3. LINNEO’S REMEDY (Ian Reilly)

One evening when Reilly was still working at The People’s Last Stand, I asked him to concoct a drink to feed my growing fascination with mezcal. At the time, he, too, was toying with mezcal and employing his philosophy of temperance – that is, avoiding the urge to compound the agave-based spirit’s smoky Latin flavor with heat and rather using it as a player in an equal, four-part structure a la the classic Last Word. This is what he came up with: a balance of mezcal, Aperol, ginger liqueur and lime.  The result is a delicious sweet-and-sour mix caught up in an undercurrent of peaty mezcal. Reilly – since relocated to just-opened Bowl and Barrel – now opts for saffron-spiced Strega over orangey Aperol, and the name he chose recalls Spain’s medicinal use of bitters as well as Swedish naturalist (and agave’s identifier) Carl Linnaeus – or Carlos Linneo, as he would have been known in Spanish. “I guess all of those, the idea of soothing and balance, combined into Linneo’s Remedy,” Reilly says.

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2. SECRETS AND LIES, The Cedars Social, Dallas (Mike Steele)

This off-the-menu treasure, inspired by a drink Steele once served in Denver, takes premium whiskey, enhances it with port and Strega and adds strong hints of Carpano Antica, vanilla syrup and a cardamom tincture. “I think cardamom and vanilla go really well together, and it’s a good, rich flavor for the fall,” he says. “Plus it goes really well with whiskey.” Every ingredient comes through, a beautiful balance of bite, herbs and holiday warmth. “One time, somebody asked me what was in it,” says the affable Steele from behind the bar of this pioneering spot south of downtown. “I said, `Secrets and lies, man, secrets and lies. And it just went from there.”

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1. FALL INTO A GLASS, Private/Social, Dallas (Rocco Milano)

It’s really not fair when Hum is in the game, because anyone who knows me knows that I adore this liqueur dominated by flavors of ginger, cardamom and clove. It’s a feisty pit bull of an ingredient, but Milano – who introduced me to Hum about a year ago – has a knack for grabbing the leash and making it shine. The gin-hefeweizen-lemon Shandy that he’d added to the summer menu at Uptown’s Private/Social, a twist on the classic French 75, was so popular that he didn’t want to part ways with it in the fall; Hum seemed a natural autumn boost for this cleverly named drink. What you get is a mix of citrus and spritz with a frothy sheen of beer, the finish a wave of autumnal Hum. “It’s amazing how different .75 oz of Hum can make a cocktail taste,” he says. “When I presented the drink to the staff during training, everyone said the exact same thing: You nailed the flavors of fall.”

Want to make it yourself? Here’s the recipe.

FALL INTO A GLASS

2 oz light-bodied gin (such as Citadelle)

1 oz lemon juice

1½ oz simple syrup

¾ oz Hum liqueur

Combine all ingredients, shake and strain into a snifter. Top with 2-3 oz wheat beer (such as McKinney-based Franconia).

— Marc Ramirez 1/9/13 

 

Barmoire

This cocktail boost is in the bag

 Three o’clock was always tea hour for chef Lisa Garza. That’s how it was growing up in Memphis. “Teas are such a big part of the South,” she says.

These days, they’re a big part of the cocktails that Garza features at Sissy’s Southern Kitchen, her restaurant on Dallas’ Henderson Avenue

As liquor-store shelves run clear with the blood of sweet-tea-flavored vodkas, odds are you’ve noticed a tea-accented cocktail or two on the menu of your local craft bar. But I’m betting you haven’t seen anyone devoting eight feet of space to them, as Sissy’s has: Two sets of glass apothecary jars dominate shelves built to accommodate their hefty dimensions.

“We built that bar around featuring the teas,” Garza said. “We gave up a lot of space to do that.”

In each, Belvedere vodka is the featured spirit. The Tipsy Arnold Palmer, infused with Japanese green and Chinese black tea, is flavored with orange, pineapple and safflower; Japan green also powers the Sencha Goji, which includes pomegranate, blueberry, lemongrass, cornflower and Goji berry.

The custom-ordered tea blends are part of Sissy’s carefully thought-out Southern identity. Orange pekoe tea even sparks the restaurant’s Kentucky Punch along with Maker’s Mark bourbon and blood orange liqueur. “This is our brand DNA,” Garza says. “This is the culture we’ve created.”

Personally, tea isn’t something I crave in my cocktails, and I tend to skip right over them on drink lists. But there’s something about a hot summer day that lets a Tipsy Arnold Palmer pull just the right lever, or a cold winter one that makes a chamomile-spiced tipple sound like a reasonable choice.

Tea’s pairing with alcohol has made long strides since the British wielded it in party-worthy punches in the 17th century. With the rise of today’s craft cocktail movement, greens, whites, blacks and herbals have been reinstated in service of bolder spirits than vodka: Here in Dallas, Salum’s High Tea blends vodka, Pama liqueur and a bit of ginger beer with cinnamon/cardamon-spiced tea, and at Tate’s, in Uptown, head barman J.W. Tate united gin with Earl Grey to create a drink called the Remedy, mixed with egg white, lemon, honey syrup and grapefruit bitters. “It’s a nice cocktail for when you’re a little under the weather,” he said.

Everyone’s doing it, and so can you. But don’t think it’s as easy as setting a jar of gin out on the porch with a handful of tea bags on a hot afternoon.

“When it comes to infusions, it’s pretty much the Wild West right now,” says Mate Hartai, the wizard behind the counter at Lower Greenville’s Libertine Bar. “Everybody’s throwing everything into anything. But it’s one of those things – like chess, it’s easy to play, but impossible to master.”

That’s because alcohol is pretty much a liquid succubus. “It draws things out much more completely,” Hartai says. “That’s why infusions work.”

It happens fast, too. Tea is an eager and delicate flower, figuratively and sometimes literally. Lose focus, and you could end up with tannic sludge. Lipton bags conquer a bottle of vodka within minutes. Hartai once left a whole box of tea bags in a liter of gin for four days. “It was black by the end, horrible,” he says. “I had to throw it away.”

So, things to consider if you’re trying this at home – the balance of spirit and tea flavors, as well as the proof of the alcohol. An 80-percent-proof rum, for example, will infuse more quickly than a 60-percent vermouth.

The makeup of the tea matters, too. A packet of shredded tea ingredients could take just hours, while a homemade blend of mostly intact items and, say, dried fruit, could take a day or two. Sissy’s tea-infused spirits are more patient concoctions, infused overnight with smaller amounts of black, white or green whole-leaf teas and aromatics like ginger and orange. “Sometimes it just pops off,” Hartai says.

He recommends finding a tea you like and using a spirit that lacks that flavor. A ginger-tea-and-peach-infused Cocchi Americano he made succeeded because the Italian aperitif wine was so bitter to begin with. And bitter teas go best with spirits or liqueurs absent bitterness.

White vermouth is a worthy vehicle. “It’s light and sweet, and it won’t extract as much because it’s not as high-proof,” Hartai says. “It’ll be a lot more delicate and light. Just drop a couple of ice cubes into it and drink it by itself.”

On the other hand, he avoids vodkas. “At that point you’re just making a really low-proof tincture,” he says. “It’s such a neutral flavor. You’re literally just going to have to throw lots of sugar in there to make it palatable…. Besides, there’s plenty of iced-tea vodkas out there already; they’ve already done all the work.”

It’s a matter of focus, adjustment and trial-and-error, taking care not to over-steep. As I write, I have a small batch of Beefeater gin in the kitchen gettin’ friendly with green tea, a sort of earthy meets botanical experiment that I’m guessing will consummate within a few hours. Or maybe not. I’ll find out.

“YOU DID WHAT WITH THAT GIN?” My resident squirrel seems to say.

Tea, Hartai says, “is going to be completely different in a spirit, because you’re not brewing, you’re extracting. It’s definitely a beast, but you can add nice complexity to everything from an Old Fashioned to a Tom Collins.” 

And infusing a sweet spirit or liqueur with something bitter is way more complex than the other way around. “Adding bitterness to anything is very difficult, because you can’t take it out once it’s in,” he says.

In an article for Readymade magazine, New York bartender Alex Day noted that tea can enrich alcohol in several modes – either steeped in the liquor itself, used as a base for syrup or simply brewed and added as an ingredient.

The delicate and clean botanicals of gin, he said, marry well with green teas and oolongs, while whiskeys, aged brandies, amari and some fortified wines couple best with aggressive flavors like black tea or herbal infusions. Chai and sweet vermouth, he said, are an especially good pairing.

Whatever you use, here’s some tips to help you through.

* Use teas you like to flavor spirits or liqueurs that lack that flavor.

* Hit up local herb shop to craft blends. For an infused vermouth, Hartai custom-ordered a blend of dried lavender, cranberry, violet and black tea.

* Simplicity is better. “It becomes very difficult to throw a bunch of things into something and expect it to come out good,” Hartai says. “That’s the problem with three-, or four-, or five-ingredient infusions. Everything’s getting lost. It’s becoming alcoholic fruit punch.”

* Experiment in small batches. “Micros,” he says. “That’s how brewers and distillers work.”

* Use good quality tea. As Day wrote for Readymade: “A cocktail can only be as good as what’s put into it.”

POSTSCRIPT

I meant to check the green-tea-and-gin mixture before I headed out for a movie, but then forgot. When I returned — more than seven hours after I first threw the bag in — the mix was a soothing shade of grassy greenish brown. I removed the bag and poured a sip. The result was a cloying smack in the mouth, an initial spritzy-sweet burn that settled into warm fireplace comfort. Not perfect, but I’m looking forward to sipping more on a cool evening sometime in the near future.

 

— Marc Ramirez, posted 10-23-12