Drink This Now: El Cruce at Verdigris
Photo by April Fleming
Some nights are Hamm’s Sandwich kind of nights. The Hamm’s Sandwich, we recently learned, is a special from Dodson’s Bar & Commons: two cans of Hamm’s beer, four ounces of whiskey, and a bottle of pickle juice. And sure, sometimes this is all you need (or it is the thing you didn’t know you needed?)
But other nights call for something slightly finer. Leawood’s Verdigris, a sister bar to both the Monarch Bar on the Plaza and the Mercury Room downtown. And like the Monarch Bar, you can order bottled batched cocktails, serving from one to eight people. Some traditionals, like the Old Fashioned, follow the classic recipe. Others, like the El Cruce, offer new flavors. To make the El Cruce, dusky mezcal is mixed with sotol (another agave-based spirit), fresh-squeezed lime juice, and our favorite part, lacto-fermented Concord grapes. Undeniably smoky as any good mezcal cocktail will be, the lacto fermented grape juice adds loads of tang. This takes the edge off of mezcal’s smokiness, yet adds sweetness and a tartness that makes the drink almost sessionable. This is the kind of drink that reminds us that cocktail making almost always is best in the hands of true pros.
Verdigris Bar
5245 W 116th Pl, Leawood, KS
