August cocktail menus shift from frozen tropical pours to stirred, bitter arrangements
As August closes, bar menus replace frozen tropical drinks with stirred, bitter spirits that demand a different kind of patience from the glass.
The glass at Tavern Next Door holds a half-ounce each of mezcal, Demerara rum, Braulio amaro, and vanilla and coffee liqueurs, bound by Angostura bitters and capped with a layered malted whip. Conor Johns built this White Russian variation on the exact distance between equal parts, allowing the smoke of the mezcal to sit precisely beside the bitter root of the amaro.
At Varsity Club, Caleb and Levi Roye place gin in a jar with Turkish grilled olives, waiting for the hickory-smoked brine to change the spirit. The drink is served on the rocks with a skewer of the same grilled olives, a savory arrangement that requires the gin to sit with the olives for days before the guest orders it.
A highball of 99 Bananas liqueur and Cynar in equal measure tastes of the sweetness of a dorm-room fixture tamed by the bitter artichoke root of the amaro. The ninety-nine proof banana spirit is wild and powerful alone, but placed next to the Cynar, the impulse of the fruit yields to the structure of the bitter.
Zack Gelnaw-Rubin’s Away Colors joined añejo rum to banana liqueur in a simple stirred build at the now-closed Lion Lion. It is a drink that plays across meridians, requiring the guest to sit with the glass and let the aged rum and the sweet liqueur negotiate their distance in the ice, much like moves in a correspondence chess game separated by weeks of quiet thought.
Down in the East Village, Schmuck serves a spoonable frozen strawberry and rhubarb Margarita topped with salty whipped cream, currently shifting to mango and cilantro for the late summer. The margin on a frozen drink built from agave and fruit puree is vast, while the stirred amari and aged spirits require the guest to pay for the time the liquid spent waiting. A stirred spirit costs time.