THE SECRET TO DANDELYAN’S NITRATE MANHATTAN

Dandelyan isn’t just one of Esquire’s favourite bars, it won The World’s 50 Best Bars 2018 award and World’s Best Cocktail Bar in 2017. Senior bartenders Fabiola Falasca and Will Meredith themed their masterclass on their “Modern Life of Plants” menu, including this rhubarb-based Manhattan. For the cocktail, we were looking at rhubarb and the use of discarded “shoddy” to enrich the soil with nitrates. We turned these elements into an evening sipper. To incorporate the rhubarb, we designed a beer “vermouth” by taking pale ale and enriching it with various vermouth botanicals. We then added rhubarb, raspberries and lanolin — a wax made from sheep's wool. This is then fortified with mezcal and paired with scotch and tequila.