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www.cheersonline.com 30 • March 2015 STYLE STYLE Signature 7 TIPS FOR CREATING SPECIALTY COCKTAILS By Melissa Niksic S ignature cocktails can help set your bar or restaurant apart from the competition and enable you to offer guests a distinctive experience. It's also fun for the bar team to unleash their creativity when developing specialty drinks in-house. Some signature cocktails are more successful then others, however. Here are a few tips for developing and improving a specialty drink recipe or menu. KEEP UP WITH CURRENT TRENDS There's always something new and exciting in the craft cocktail world. Kathy Casey, a celebrity chef and mixologist and president of the consultancy Kathy Casey Food Studios—Liquid Kitchen, predicts that that ginger fl avors will continue to be big behind the bar. Apple and other orchard-fruit cocktail fl avors are also gaining popularity, capitalizing on the hard-cider trend, she says. How are some operators tapping into these fl avor trends? A popular drink at Russell House Tavern in Cambridge, MA, is the Always Sunny ($10). It incorporates Privateer silver rum, raspberry, lime, Regan's No. 6 orange bitters and house ginger beer. The tavern's barrel-aged Norman Holiday cocktail ($10) blends Laird's Applejack, Pommeau De Normandie, Blanche De Normandie apple brandy, honey and lemon. Russell House has three comprehensive cocktail menus, says bar manager Ashish Mitra: standard, brunch, and dessert. Since vintage cocktails continue to be in vogue, one way to create a few unique drinks is to tweak the classics, particularly with seasonal or local ingredients and spirits. Russell House offers several unique variations of popular cocktail staples. For example, the Harvard Yard No. 3, made with Laphroaig 10-year Scotch, Croft Distinction port, green Chartreuse and salt ($13), is a take on a Manhattan. USE UNIQUE INGREDIENTS Incorporating rare and local ingredients will make your specialty cocktails stand out. At Chicago's Sable Kitchen & Bar, one of the most popular cocktails is the War of the Roses ($14). It's a blend of Pimm's, Ford's gin, Chase Elderfl ower liqueur, mint, fresh lime, and Peychaud's bitters. Head bartender John Stanton thinks the drink is a hit because of its unique mix of fl avors. Meanwhile, Mitra says Russell House Tavern's Battle of Trafalgar cocktail ($10) tastes unlike www.cheersonline.com 30 • April 2015