Plus: Drinks With Mo Rocca * Vanilla Cocktails Sambuca Beignets

DIY GRAPEFRUIT BITTERS
CHOCOLATE STOUT TASTE TEST
MIMOSAS THREE WAYS
People, Places and
Flavors that will shape
the way you drink
in 2013.
P lus: Drinks With Mo Rocca * Vanilla Cocktails
Sambuca Beignets * Find the Best Paring Knife
48 imbibemagazine.com ~ january/february 2013
Left to right: The Dead Rabbit’s
Jack McGarry, Sean Muldoon
and Chris Szablinski.
PLACES
THE DEAD RABBIT
GROCERY & GROG
ESSEX
SEATTLE
NEW YORK CITY
After more than two years in development, this three-story, historically
minded Financial District saloon has finally materialized. Its menu is a
book-like, illustrated affair thick with punches, bishops, flips, possets,
nogs, cups, cobblers and more, with historical bits and quotes from
Dickens and Whitman tucked in. Forget about “classic cocktails”—many
of these drinks reach beyond the pre-Prohibition era to uncover longforgotten proto-cocktails. A punch dating to 1608, Meriton Latroon’s
Bantam, contains Batavia Arrack, lime sherbet, lime juice, coconut
palm sugar and earl grey tea, while the Captain Radcliffe’s, from 1680,
mixes Remy Martin 1738 Cognac with a quinquina, a raspberry eau de
vie, raspberry syrup, lemon juice, Ceylon tea, rosewater and a quinine
tincture. For those interested in cocktails and early New York history, this
is a must-visit.
ALYMETH
This riff off a mulled wine recipe
from William Schmidt's The
Flowing Bowl (1892) uses "greener"
spices and herbs like bay leaf and
cardamom instead of the more
traditional Christmas spices,
says Jack McGarry of The Dead
Rabbit. It's one of the many classic
reinterpretations on the bar’s
encyclopedic cocktail menu.
ORIGINAL
OKRA CHARITY
SALOON
HOUSTON
1 750-ml. bottle Burgundy wine
Oleo-saccharum of 2 oranges
2 oz. fresh orange juice
1 oz. fresh lemon juice
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. coriander
4 cardamom pods
2 star anise
1 mace blade
Tools: mortar and pestle, pot, spoon
Glass: mugs or highballs
Garnish: grated nutmeg and
orange twist
Both photos by Gabi Porter
Prepare the oleo-saccharum by
using a vegetable peeler to remove
the peel of two oranges (avoiding
the white pith) and place the peels
in a mixing bowl. Add 2 ounces of
bar-fine sugar and pulverize with a
muddler. Do so until the oil content
in the peels is extracted and infused
into the sugar. Combine the oleo-
The sibling bar (and next-door
neighbor) to Seattle pizza
hotspot Delancey is small,
but its ambitions are big.
Everything—and we mean
everything—is made in-house,
from the liqueurs to the soft
pretzels. Recent highlights
from the cocktail menu, which
is creative and constantly
changing—you’ll see new
offerings each time you go—
were the Red Medicine, made
with an aged rye, housemade
fernet, rhubarb syrup and
ginger beer, and the HMS
Theodore Roosevelt with gin,
housemade citrus liqueur and
sparkling wine from Essex’s
dedicated tap line. Check out
the recipe for homemade
grapefruit bitters from Essex
bartender Gary Abts on page 78.
saccharum with the wine and lemon
and orange juice in a pot. Pulverize
the bay leaves and spices with a
mortar and pestle, then add to the
wine and citrus mixture, stir and
bring to a boil and simmer for 15
minutes. Strain out the solids and
ladle the mulled wine into cups and
garnish with freshly grated nutmeg
and an orange twist. Serves 4.
The Dead Rabbit Grocery & Grog
New York City
Houston has been a hotspot
for cocktail innovation in
recent years, and the latest
bar concept is all heart—the
city’s OKRA group (Organized
Kollaboration on Restaurant
Affairs), headed by superstar
Houston bartender and
entrepreneur Bobby Heugel,
has just debuted its Original
OKRA Charity Saloon, which
will send 100 percent of its
profits to a different Houston–
based organization or social
cause each month. The
cavernous, arch-ceilinged
downtown saloon space was
formerly home to the Original
Casino Saloon, circa 1882, and
Heugel is joined by nearly two
dozen Houston food and drinks
pros and entrepreneurs
in opening the innovative
charity bar.
january/february 2013 ~ imbibemagazine.com 49