Garden to glass
With a little imagination, these cocktails are cooly refreshing
Seasonal herbs, fruits and vegetables aren't just for the plate or the pot. They are as easily for the pitcherand the glass. Be the toast of the town by enhancing your cocktail with something gathered from the garden or farm market.
We're not just talking about celery in the bloody mary or muddled mint in the mojito. When it comes to garden-to-glass refreshment, the only limit is your imagination, say the professionals.
Marissa Dallow, head bartender at the Breakneck Tavern in Mars, said fresh herbs and vegetables play as big a role at the tavern’s bar as in the dining room. The innovative restaurant and watering hole prides itself on its locally sourced offerings from Butler County. Basil and rosemary are delivered to its backdoor twice weekly from a couple of little farms about five miles down the road.
“I love to use fresh herbs in the drinks. They make the biggest difference,” Ms. Dallow said.
A little juicer kept in a handy spot is used to whirl the vegetables and fruits for customer favorites such as mango margaritas, strawberry-basil mules, and one of Ms. Dallow's favorites — which she hasn't given a moniker— cucumber-flavored gin with rosemaryand fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice.
“We adjust the cocktail menu to the season to reflect what's available,” she said.
Ms. Dallow said she and other staff will gather for a confab and talk about the tastes they want to create such as pickle-infused vodka.
"We buy local cucumbers from a family farm near here and pickle them. We'll combine the pickles with the vodka, add a little bit of the pickle juice, and on Sundays, we do bloody marys for our brunch with the vodka,” she said. “Our pickles are kind of spicy so they give the entire drink a kick and then we garnish with them, too. They're delicious.”
It's an easy undertaking for the home cook and gardener: Plant your own little “cocktail garden” — a rectangle raised bed of lemon verbena, lavender, chives, parsley, cherry tomatoes, cucumber and mint.
Denise Schreiber, who manages Allegheny County's South Park greenhouse and tended bar for a decade at a place in Market Square, said combining fresh cucumber with some muddled basil and gin is an especially refreshing summer drink.
She authored a book on edible flowers, “Eat Your Roses,” in 2011, and suggested that picking a few posies and adding them to the blender is a tasty and aromatic way to
impress. A half cup of chopped rose petals in a frozen strawberry daquiri adds a fragrance and flavor to the sip while fresh chopped nasturtiums adds a peppery taste to a bloody mary.
“It's fun. It's a way to play with food and be creative and get people talking,” she said.
John Wabeck, general manager of Spoon who has worked as a bartender and sometimes lends a hand behind the bar at the East Liberty restaurant, said cocktails should be approached as food: “Gear them to what's going on seasonally.”
That applies to herbs, fruits and vegetables. In fact, on the day of this interview, he came to work carrying lavender from his garden for a cocktail that combines vodka, lemon juice, lavender syrup, Grand Marnier, absinthe and Aperol.
“Cooking With Cocktails” by Kristy Gardner (Countryman Press; 2017) is a heavy tome that proposes, in sum, that alcohol makes just about everything better.
There is a section exclusive to cocktails and they include some unconventional ingredients and some fun sobriquets: Dirty Sexy Coffee Drinks and Moscow Dark & Stormy, to name two.
I tried several cocktails and liked them all well enough to make a special trip to my backyard or to the farmer’s market to get more herbs and vegetables to prepare more.