Mixing It Up

On subsequent visits to New York, I always stop by the Gramercy Tavern, just to see what other unusual cocktails they're serving. And I have been rewarded with rum-and-plum cocktails made with muddled ripe plums, cocktails containing rum and stewed rhubarb, and many others.

Danny Meyer, whose Union Square Hospitality Group owns Gramercy Tavern, Tabla and other New York restaurants famous for their cocktails, is one of the main forces behind the cocktail revolution in New York.

"We started trying to come up with cocktails that expressed the idea of the restaurant back at Union Square in 1985," Meyer recalls. At Mediterranean-inspired Union Square Cafe, the theme drink was an Italian Prosecco cocktail with French strawberry liqueur and a wild strawberry garnish. At the Indian fusion restaurant Tabla, it was the Masala Mary. "The drink list should be a megaphone for the concept of the restaurant," he told me over the phone.

Meyer is working on a new restaurant called The Modern, which will soon open in the relocated Museum of Modern Art. "We have a drink there called the Red Square, inspired by the Russian painter Kazimir Malevich's Red Square, Black Square," Meyer says. "It's made with Russian vodka and beets. We're working on a champagne cocktail for pointillism," he jokes. "And cubism is inspiring some new ideas in flavored ice cubes."

In a new book called Raising the Bar: Better Drinks, Better Entertaining, former Gramercy Tavern manager Nick Mautone explains how partnerships between chefs and a new breed of bartenders have resulted in these new cocktails.

"The intimate relationship between the bar and the kitchen is paramount," writes Mautone. He goes on to tell the story of arriving at Gramercy Tavern one morning just as the kitchen staff was about to discard some oven-dried tomato chips. Mautone rescued the chips and used them as a spectacular garnish for his basil martinis, which he made with basil-infused vodka he already had in the refrigerator. The basil martini became one of Gramercy Tavern's signature drinks.

In his book, Mautone provides some guidelines for pairing cocktails and dishes. For instance, "match rich, creamy foods with cocktails that have bountiful acidity," he advises. "Salty foods demand contrasting elements such as sweetness," he continues. But then he goes on to say, "I generally do not serve cocktails with the main meal…their place is before or after…" Mautone insists that wine is the only drink that should be served with great food. The one exception he allows is a drink called a watermelon cooler that "goes incredibly well, much better, in fact, than most wines, with great barbecue."

Wine and great barbecue?

While I love Mautone's book and the great drink recipes it contains, it makes me realize how unique Texans are when it comes to beverages. Wine consumption in Texas is increasing, but it's still paltry compared to that in New York or California. In fact, we drink more than twice as much distilled spirits as we do wine. And if you figure that those spirits are diluted in cocktails, you realize that by volume we probably drink six times more cocktails than wine.

No doubt Monica Pope's confit of duck would have tasted wonderful with a glass of red wine. But here, as in the Caribbean, a cold rum punch just seems more in tune with the tropical climate. Or maybe we Texans just got into the habit of drinking cocktails with dinner because of our margarita obsession.

Since 1971, when the frozen margarita machine was invented by Mariano Martinez in Dallas, we have had our own little cocktail revolution going on down here. Whatever you think of frozen margaritas, you have to admit that they forever changed the drinking habits of Texans. When we sit down for dinner in a Tex-Mex restaurant, the question we ask ourselves is, beer or margaritas? And when we order margaritas, we will often drink them throughout the meal.

"The margarita's balanced blend of sweet-tart earthiness and acidity cuts through the richness and spice of many foods," writes Mautone. The fact that we eat so much spicy food in Texas is probably another reason we don't drink much wine.

Whatever the explanation, our penchant for drinking cocktails with our meals makes the Houston dining public an ideal audience for the new cocktail creations.

---

The Rising Sun cocktail starts with a poached kumquat lightly crushed in the bottom of a straight-sided triple shot glass. The fruit's juice gently colors the ice-cold mixture of sake and vodka in the glass above it, so the drink is clear on top and progressively more colored and cloudy near the bright little orange globe of citrus.

It resembles a saketini, a martini made with vodka and Japanese sake that's popular in Asian fusion restaurants. But the kumquat and the clever name are Robert Gadsby's original twist. When I finish the drink, I can't resist tipping the glass all the way back and munching down on the poached fruit that falls from the bottom of the glass.