Life is far too short not to have a little umbrella in your drink. ~ Leigh Standley, Curly Girl Design
Last summer I couldn’t pick up a newspaper or magazine without seeing some reference to cocktail gardens. Growing plants to put in drinks was the rage.
But not this year. Instead, a different trend has surfaced.
Bartenders are no longer satisfied with plain names for plain drinks like margarita, martini and Manhattan. Further, according to Frank Bruni in a story in the June 9, 2010, issue of The New York Times, “The monikers offer no clue: They’re pure literary whimsy, a proudly opaque muddling of the chartreuse with the abstruse.”
Consider these cocktails from various bars around New York City: Penelope Cruiser, Beggarman Thief, Legend of Zarro, From Beirut With Passion, White Star Imperial Daisy and Sexy London.
Johnny Michaels is the best bartender in the Twin Cities. I know because I’ve tasted a few of his concoctions over the years and because I once took a cooking class for the sole reason that he was presenting drink recipes. (Unfortunately, I can’t remember much about either his strong drinks or the food.) He has long been associated with La Belle Vie, the best restaurant in Minnesota, and other enterprises of Tim McKee and Josh Thoma.
Here’s Johnny’s drink list: Night of the Hunter, Black Pearl, French Teen Idol, The All New 2010 TCG 1000, This Boot Was Made For Drinking and my favorite, Gild the Lily.
The Redhead is a restaurant in New York City that was brought to my attention by a small mention in Esquire, perhaps a year or two ago. Esquire raved about The Redhead’s Bacon Peanut Brittles—a simple snack of “maple-roasted peanuts with smokey bacon” and “because everything tastes better with bacon.”
The cocktails listed on the Redhead menu have simple names—especially in comparison—and the bartender thoughtfully added subtitles. For example: Gotham (a dark and complex Manhattan), Vesper (James Bond’s first martini) and Aviation (high flying classic).
Wanting to bring of bit of that vibe to my happy hour, I ordered a package of Bacon Peanut Brittle and filled a crystal party dish. Then I guessed at amounts of rum, ginger syrup and fresh lemon juice in their ingeniously named drink, the Ginger Snap, and toasted the day.
