An expert’s view on the best spirits for cocktails

To bartend at one of the best bars in the world, it requires an immense amount of creativity and expertise in creating one-of-a-kind flavour profiles - especially when the cocktail menu is everchanging.

And while all spirits are incorporated into unique cocktails at The Dead Rabbit, located in downtown New York City and previously named the best bar in the world, there are two that the bar’s beverage director Jillian Vose named as her favourites when it comes to creating new drinks.

Speaking to The Independent, Vose said: “When building a menu we try and check all the boxes on spirits and styles of drinks,” but if she had to choose, it would be a “mean tie between Irish whiskey and Calvados,” an apple or pear brandy from the Normandy region in France.

On the bar’s current menu, Irish whiskey features in the Speed Demon, a cocktail made of cider cask Irish whiskey, dessert wine, becherovka, verjus, dried apricot and pimento bitters and in the Witch Hunt, a drink featuring Irish whiskey, IPA beer, pineapple, yellow chartreuse, banana, cinnamon, and peach bitters.

Calvados appears in the House of Ill Repute, a drink made of the brandy, aged Dutch Genever, aged Cachaça, apricot, barley, oat milk, and lemon.

As for where Vose draws inspiration from when designing a new menu, she told us that it comes from “many things” such as cookbooks to farmers markets.

“When we are working on a new menu, I’ll usually pick up some new books on cooking, flavour pairings and cocktails,” she said.

“I’ll usually scroll through old cocktail books and notebooks for inspiration, I’ll go to spice shows, farmers markets and grocery stores to see what catches my eye and what’s in season.”

The result is an Irish pub turned cocktail bar that has frequently been named the best.

When it comes to the ingredients she keeps stocked at her own bar at home, Vose told us her preferences are slightly more typical - comprised of just cane sugar and a “375ml bottle of dry vermouth.”

“If I’m making drinks at home, it’s either a martini or a daiquiri so that does it for me,” she said.

The bar recently expanded its location at 30 Water Street to be able to fit more people, after realising that the tight quarters of its former space required a strict door policy which “goes against the Irish pub policy,” according to The Dead Rabbit co-founder Jack Mcgarry, who told The Independent: “The expansion brings the Irish bar into the 21st century.

And while there is now more room, the bar’s parlour is still “where you go to get the best cocktails in the world.” THE INDEPENDENT