Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/10329
FLAVOR FINDS Anu Apte, co-owner of Seattle bar Rob Roy, mixes her Apitherapy cocktail. Reitz just deals with the hot side of things as the Restaurant Manager for Fig in Charleston, SC, and as a consultant for the hotel/restaurant 21C in Louisville, KY. He also cites the Bees Knees. “Now that I’m in Charleston and it’s hot as hell, the Bees Knees is a wonderful summer drink—crisp, bright and not cloying at all.” The versatility of honey doesn’t end with temperature or classic drinks; it works well with a range of spirits. “I think it really does work well with almost every spirit,” says Anu Apte, co-owner of Seattle bar Rob Roy. “I’ve been playing around with a lot of rums and bourbons. I could imagine it going really well with tequila. I may play around with that tonight actually!” Hillary Choo, Head Bartender at Plunge at the Gansevoort South in Miami Beach, beat Apte to it. She uses honey along with green tea in a cocktail she recently created. She says, “Honey is sort of like agave, and tequila often needs a stronger tasting sugar substitute.” Bartenders around the world are substituting honey for sugar in drinks like the Old Fashioned to add a subtle new spin. Retiz says, “I like sweetening drinks with things that have a flavor other than . . . just sweet. With simple syrup you’re not getting any flavors on the back end.” Honey is most often used in cocktails in syrup form, usually diluted with equal parts hot water, but Apte uses it 104 / the tasting panel / may 2010 on the rim of the glass for some cock- tails. “I think with sugar-rimmed drinks you get too much sugar with each sip, but if you have a nice spirit-forward cocktail and rim half the glass with crystallized honey, it adds a nuttiness flowers. “You can go from light honey to dark honey, from local honeys to honeys from different countries. Clover honey is the most accessible, and I use it the most in my recipes; but there are a lot of honeys out there you can experiment with,” says Choo. Honey fits on a classic-focused cocktail list as well as a local one. Reitz says, “I think honey is cool because it’s a regional product. It allows us to sweeten with something in the back- yard. At Fig, the food emphasizes local ingredients, and I’m trying to bring that into the beverage program.” An increasing number of com- mercial products use honey flavor too. Liqueurs such as Irish Mist, Wild Turkey American Honey, Evan Williams Honey Reserve, Seagram’s 7 Crown Dark Honey and Drambuie combine honey with the sweet taste of whisk(e)y; German liqueur Bärenjäger uses honey from the Yucatán. Honey-flavored vod- kas include 42Below Manuka Honey and Rehorst Citrus and Honey. Hollander uses Drambuie—an ingredient in the classic Rusty Nail and now available in striking new packag- ing—with applejack in a drink on her Jennifer Pittman, a mixologist at Proof on Main in Louisville, adds final touches—Peychaud’s bitters—to the Farmhand Fizz. and slight sweetness to it,” she says. Bartenders are experimenting with a range of honey flavors, the result of bees feasting on different types of Emma Hollander pours with flair at Trina’s Starlite Lounge in Somerville, MA. menu at Trina’s. “Honey’s not restricted or limited, which is why it’s coming back in the cocktail world- and the food world as well,” she says. “You’re not going to find too many people who don’t like honey.” PHOTO: MICHAEL QUIET PHOTO: MELANIE CONNER PHOTO: FRED MINNICK