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Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/57862
MARKETING MATTERS By Carolyn Walkup Cocktails Add a Sweet Note T Operators ring in profi ts with liquid desserts. oday's new dessert-fl avored cocktails are hardly your grandmother's Brandy Alexanders. Rather, they are a contemporary, sweet way for operators to cap a dinner or a night out by putting the bartender rather than the pastry chef to work. "Operators realize they have an opportunity to make guests feel they can splurge without getting dessert to end the evening," says Adam Seger, a Chicago-based mixologist, consultant and founder of HUM Spirits. "It's a reinvention of the old Grasshoppers and Brandy Alexanders and part of the resurgence of cocktails." Ingredients that Seger and other bartenders are seeing pop up in the dessert drink category include chocolate-infused wine, vanilla and chocolate-infused vodka, various liqueurs, chocolate syrup, sweet cream, ice cream, egg whites, pistachios and other things from the pastry kitchen. Some drinks are combining sweet and savory ingredients, such as salted caramel and chocolate. Fans of these cocktails sometimes order them before dinner as an aperitif, but more typically they'll order one either after dinner or as a night cap, especially with suggestive selling by servers, Seger says. Sometimes they are even indulgently paired with desserts, such as dark chocolate truffl es. A RANGE OF FLAVORS Spirits normally used in drier cocktails also can form the base of a dessert drink, such as the Egg & Dart Fizz, priced at $9, served at the new Egg & Dart, a modern Greek restaurant and lounge in Miami's Design District. It's made with an American gin, egg white, lemon, powdered sugar, sweet cream and Hum and is served in a highball glass over ice. "It's a fi nisher, but it can be a beginner to cleanse the palate," says David Ortiz, a consulting mixologist. "It's inspired by the Ramos Gin Fizz." Co-owner Costas Grillas says he expects this signature drink to be a huge seller that will increase bar profi ts. Café Con Leche incorporates egg yolk The Pride of Poland, made with Zü Vodka, is popular at Meat Market in Miami Beach. 16 | MARCH 2012 with Caff e Lolita chocolate-accented coff ee liqueur and Goslings dark rum at Lantern's Keep in New York. Meaghan Dorman, the restaurant's consulting mixologist, says this and other dessert cocktails are becoming popular after the theater. "Th ey want a cocktail instead of a dessert, and they see that these cocktails are meant to be sweet without being overloaded with sugar." Th e drink sells for $14. Lantern's Keep markets this profi table category that makes use of an array of spirits via two-way communication between staff and guests. "Th e staff is www.cheersonline.com