The Heavenly Pomegranate Mortini (top) is a Martini with a twist and the Salt Air Margarita at Oyamel uses foam.
replacing the simple syrup with agave, maple or honey. Even steeping simple syrup with an aromatic herb like rosemary off ers applications like a more fragrant Tom Collins. “You’ve got a classic drink with a new fl avor.”
EASY SUBSTITUTIONS FOR OLD FAVORITES Ubiquitous sips like the Manhattan, Negroni and Sidecar easily
lend themselves to experimentation, says Tylor Field, III, vice president of wine and spirits for Morton’s T e Steakhouse, which has seventy-fi ve locations worldwide. Each of these three classic concoctions contains a fruit, bitter, spirit and aperitif element, and off ers a bevy of beverage options if you mix and match—say, by using Aperol in a Negroni instead of Campari, or reaching for Bourbon or diff erent bitters for a Manhattan. Patricia Richards, property mixologist for Wynn’s twenty bars on property in Las Vegas, keeps the Cognac and orange liqueur in her Sidecar ($16) but tricks it out with a purée made from slowly roasted pineapple
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and sage leaves. Together with its sibling property, the Encore, the Wynn has a total of 4,750 rooms. T e Blood and Sand is traditionally made with equal parts
Scotch, Cherry Heering, Sweet Vermouth and orange juice. At José Andrés Mexican restaurant Oyamel in Washington, D.C., Beverage Director Jill Zimorski—who oversees the drinks programs for T inkFoodGroup’s ten restaurants in D.C., Los Angeles and Las Vegas—updates it by replacing the Scotch with Del Maguey Mezcal, adding renowned Mexican chef Diana Kennedy’s recipe for house-made Sangrita de Jalisco, and renaming it the Sangre Y Fuego ($11). Mezcal’s innate smokiness makes it a worthy and eclectic stand-in for other Scotch drinks like the Rob Roy and Robert Burns. Besides toying with fl avor combinations, another means
to an imbibe-worthy spin-off is to deconstruct a cocktail’s components, and then re-include them in an unconventional way. T e basic Paloma recipe is Tequila, grapefruit soda,
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RIGHT: POWER & CREWE PHOTOGRAPHY
