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Cocktails in the Rye
Raising the Bar for Guest Palates And Expectations On-Premise
When Dushan Zaric makes one of his classic cocktails for a guest at his
Employees Only (EO) bar and restaurant in New York City’s West Village,
it’s a safe bet that whatever it is in the glass, it’s a spirited
salute to a time when a bartender was a bartender and a libation was a
libation in the true and uniquely American tradition of the trade.
Typical of the drinks to be sipped at this Hudson Street venue —
opened in December of 2004 by four bartenders, Zaric included, and a
maitre d’ — is the Matahari, a clever double agent with French Cognac,
chai-infused sweet Italian vermouth spiced with cardamom, coriander and
ginger, with fresh squeezed lemon juice, some simple syrup and
fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice added for good measure. To garnish
this precocious cocktail, three dried baby rosebuds are floated on top.“
A cocktail should excite the senses like a woman does to a man,”
Zaric says. “You can’t eat the flower, but it brings the scent –– it
opens the door.”
Another of the house signatures at EO is the Provencale, made with
lavender-infused Plymouth Gin, herbs de provance, Cointreau, vermouth,
sage and rosemary. This drink, too, is garnished with a flame-orange
twist to add a dramatic touch.
Escape From New York
This considered and creative approach to cocktails is not at all an
isolated example in a sophisticated New York state of mixology.
More and more, it’s a cocktail de force and a trend that is
stirring in other fine American beverage and hospitality destinations
as well, not the least of which is Biloxi, Miss.’s newly reopened Beau
Rivage Casino Resort. With four bar/lounges — Eight75, Coast, the Pool
Café and the Casino Bar — patrons can partake of sinfully good and
thoughtfully rendered versions of Mojitos that start with labor-laden,
fresh-muddled mint and vodkas Martinis with the stout, call-brand
status and order of Grey Goose and Chopin to match the service of the
house.
Much as the staff at Employees Only, the Beau’s eager contingent of
bartenders endeavor to live up to the traditions of keeping bar in all
of its 19th century glory and nuance, no matter what they are mixing
behind the bar. To the man and the woman, theirs is a strategy of
employing the freshest local ingredients, the clever use of liqueurs
and cordials and plenty of trial and error in challenging the cocktail
status quo, says George Goldhoff, vice president of food and beverage
at the Beau Rivage. “We are trying to lead our market,” Goldhoff
says. “And patrons are looking to be led by our bar staff.”
Passing It On
Almost any way you look at it, the near bottomless profundity of
the drinks that now grace the beverage menus at the Beau Rivage,
Employees Only and elsewhere exemplify a cocktail experience come full
circle, both in the way it is practiced as a profession as well as in
how it has come to be appreciated by the drinking public at large.
“Bartenders are reaching back to the origins of the trade,” Zaric
says. “When bartending started, it required two to three years of study
under a principal bartender. You could not go out and buy a bottle of
vermouth in the store.” Bartenders made their own vermouth, cordials
and bitters, he says. “We opened this place to teach people and
preserve the craft.”
At EO, every ingredient down to the absinthe bitters, the wild
strawberry puree, the grenadine and the infused gin and vermouth is
made in house, Zaric says. More in line with the kitchen of a fine
French restaurant, the bar is slanted seasonally in terms of what a
patron might experience in mixers and garnishes.
The fussiness over the cocktails set before guests extends all the
way to the ice in the shaker and/or the glass. As Zaric explains it,
the specialty ice is both a tool and an ingredient.
“It’s a tool because it brings the cocktail to the right
temperature, and it is an ingredient because it provides the right
amount of dilution, bringing water as a balancing ingredient into the
cocktail.”
There is even an element of patriotic pride at work in the novel
old way that bartending is being practiced at Employees Only.
“We are guided by the first cocktail,” Zaric says, citing “How to
Mix Drinks in the Bar,” an 1867 cocktail book by Jerry Thomas, the
father of the American-born profession, as a major source of
inspiration. “Before, you (only) had wines and sherries. There were no
aperitifs. It’s what Americans gave to the culinary world.”
Ultimately, however, it may be what guests do not find in their
drinks there that best defines the difference between it and other
venues where a more modern, progressive and mass-appealing mode of
mixology calls for the mixing of different kinds of exotic fruit juices
with vodka.
“That is playing down and falling down to the conditioned consumer
palate,” the non-complacent Zaric says. “All you are actually getting
is fruit juice or a combination with a kick. We do not do that.”
For Goldhoff, the cocktails in play at his Eight75 may harken back
to the early days of the cocktail, but they also have proven to be a
perfect match for the changing expectations of his more discerning
customers here and now.
“They (patrons) are not going into a bar to get a buzz,” he says.
“They are going to socialize, and they would rather have two or three
well-made cocktails than a half dozen (generic) drinks.” NCB
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