The Drinks You’ll Be Ordering For the Rest of 2016

No one has ever accused the Midwest of being a trendsetting region. That lofty badge has always gone to the coasts; presumably, residents there are more finely attuned to what’s hot and what’s not — especially when it comes to such important cultural matters as booze.

What a load of crap.

Now, it may be true that certain trends in food and drink take longer to reach us in the dead center of the country. (Fernet Branca enjoyed a swelling popularity in California for several years before going mainstream.) Thank state liquor laws for that; some products take longer to enter our market. But in my extensive tour of the metro’s watering holes, it’s been made clear: These restrictions cannot contain the creativity — or forward thinking — of Kansas City’s most talented bartenders.

As we close the first quarter of 2016, I wanted to know what some of those bartenders had in mind for cocktail trends to look forward to the rest of the year. For the jury, I rounded up Caitlin Corcoran of Ça Va, Missouri’s first champagne bar and one of Wine Spectator’s best bars in the world of 2015; Andrew Olsen of Bluestem, which was a semifinalist for a 2016 James Beard Award in its “Outstanding Restaurants” category; and Berto Santoro, the bar manager at Extra Virgin and the longtime president of the Kansas City chapter of the United States Bartender’s Guild. These three, I was sure, could shake up something that would surprise me — and keep me thirsty for the next eight months.

I wasn’t disappointed.

ANDREW OLSEN
BLUESTEM
The trend: Wine-based cocktails
Why: To add depth and dimension to a recipe.

With several hundred liquor bottles lining the shelves behind the bar at Bluestem, it’s interesting that bar manager Andrew Olsen would devote a third of his specialty-cocktail menu to drinks championing wine as an ingredient.

“We predominantly sell wine, and that’s what people are here for,” Olsen says. “I like to bridge that gap between the bar and the tasting menu [in the dining room]. And while sparkling wine, sherry and madeira seem to be popular trends in cocktails right now, there’s a broad scope of wines that you can use to boost a drink.”

To his credit, these are intriguing combinations that Olsen has assembled on his menu. The Carnation Market is a rum-and–Fino sherry cocktail; the Perfectly Perfect combines gin, Coteaux du Layon Premier Cru Chaume (a sweet French wine), Olsen’s housemade cucumber-cinnamon syrup and an egg white. The drink I am most interested in, the SXSE, uses Tequila Ocho Plata and a Riesling from the Mosel region in Germany — with a salted Rioja-foam garnish.

Olsen grins. “Yes, you’ll have that one,” he says, apparently having decided for me. But I am more than willing to let Olsen have all the power here; it’s his bar, after all, and he has yet to steer me wrong.

“So the cocktail is called South By Southeast,” Olsen explains, “because the hills on the bank of the Moselle River [in Germany] predominantly face south, and so do the slopes on the ranch in Jalisco where Tequila Ocho is made.”

I respond to this nerdery with a slanted brow and a wry smile, but I am secretly pleased: Olsen is the type of bartender who considers every element of his drink. I imagine there is some secret matrix of criteria each cocktail must fit; a clever name is just the clincher.

Olsen tells me that the SXSE is a traditional punch ratio: two parts strong and two parts weak alcohol, one part sweet and one part sour. The tequila is aromatic, with hints of pear and warm mulling spices — a perfect match, Olsen says, for the sweet orange blossom and peach profile of the J.J. Prüm Riesling. His housemade chamomile syrup is there to marry these two characters.

Olsen mixes these ingredients, shakes and strains them into a wavy Nick and Nora glass. The liquid looks like a pale limeade, but Olsen isn’t finished. A lavender-purple foam rests atop this liquid, and it is made up of Rioja wine, Ancho Reyes liqueur and just a tiny dab of sucrose ester — an emulsifier used to convert the liquid into froth. This so-called garnish is as fluffy as the cloud on a cappuccino, and though pretty, it is anything but decorative.

I taste the foam first: a heady mix of salt, spice and just a hint of red wine. The texture and the flavors don’t add up, and my palate is rocked. Olsen admonishes me.

“You have to taste the tequila with it,” he says. “That’s the whole point.” I do as he says, and I’m further confounded. I want to compare Olsen’s SXSE to an elegant margarita, but I don’t feel that does his creation justice. As I drink, he talks.

“The flavors of any wine will change based on where they come from and what they are,” he says. “In a cocktail, I think they can allow you to add depth and character without compromising the spirit. In this drink, you can taste the tequila and the Riesling, but the sweet-and-sour profile isn’t overbearing. It allows you to feel like you’re drinking a strong drink, but it’s not as strong as it would be.”

Plus, Olsen adds, using a small quantity of less-expensive wine in a cocktail means that he can offset the cost of a more spendy spirit like Tequila Ocho, which makes the drink a little more affordable for his guest. And while Bluestem isn’t about to make any “cheap eats” lists, it says something that, at $12 a cocktail, I feel comfortable ordering a second — hell, maybe a third — SXSE.

SXSE (South By Southeast)
1 ounce Tequila Ocho Plata
1 ounce J.J. Prüm Riesling
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce chamomile syrup
Foam:
1 1/2 ounces Rioja wine
1/2 ounce Ancho Reyes liqueur
1/4 teaspoon Sucrose Ester

For the drink, shake ingredients together and strain. For the foam, combine ingredients in a stick blender and charge.

[page]CAITLIN CORCORAN
ÇA VA
The trend: Chinato, a red grape-based vermouth
Use it: In cocktails in place of a base spirit, or shoot it on its own.

Caitlin Corcoran needed approximately 10 seconds to select her preferred trend.

“You’ve had Chinato, right?” she asks, pulling a bottle filled with a sinister-looking red liquid from her wine cooler. I have had it, but not the Americano Vermouth Grignolino that Corcoran is now pouring a shot of.

“Technically, Chinato is vermouth, and most are made with Nebbiolo grape juice,” Corcoran says. “This one was created by a retired chemist in Italy named Mauro Vergano. He was really into natural wines and indigenous yeasts and stuff like that, and this is his product. He actually used this super-obscure grape called Grignolino to make this, along with Nebbiolo. I think it’s been available for about two years in our market. It’s really light, really flavorful. I love it.”

I sip on the taste Corcoran has pushed toward me. Sweet, fresh raspberry and honey notes dance joyfully with a lip-smacking citrus finish; this is a liqueur so tasty and dainty, even a child could like it. I want to try it on ice, with soda — or, better yet, with champagne. Corcoran is one step ahead of me; as she prepares a Chinato cocktail, she hints that the newest iteration of Ça Va’s happy-hour menu will primarily feature vermouth-and-bubbles cocktails.

“Bartenders have always liked shooting vermouth or drinking them on the rocks or with soda,” she says, “because it’s a low-alcohol way to imbibe. But for the average bar guest, I think they think of vermouth as something their grandma had underneath the sink for years, and when they taste it it’s oxidized and not good.”

Vermouths, Corcoran reminds me, are fortified wines. Once opened, they need to be refrigerated for the duration of their shelf life — which is three months at best. I can’t imagine the Americano Vermouth Grignolino lasting nearly that long in Corcoran’s fridge.

“As a trend, I think vermouths standing on their own is something that I’m personally really into, and something that’s become more popular recently,” Corcoran says. “A lot of people think of vermouths as a component to a classic cocktail, but I like the idea of them being the star of the show. And Chinato, I think, is a niche product in the greater trend of vermouths becoming more popular.”

Corcoran pushes a glinting, ruby-hued drink my way. It’s called the Countess, she tells me. It’s a riff on a Negroni featuring Americano Vermouth Grignolino as the base spirit, plus Campari and Cardamaro. I much prefer Corcoran’s take on the classic to the original: In her Countess, the sweetness of the Chinato and the Cardamaro offsets the bitter bite of the Campari. I feel positively royal sipping it, and Corcoran — not one to be left out of the fun — pours herself a petite taste of her favorite aperitif.

“Santé!” she exclaims, clinking her glass with mine. I happily echo her toast.

THE COUNTESS
1 1/2 ounces Americano Vermouth Grignolino (or your favorite Chinato)
1 ounce Campari
1/2 ounce Cardamaro

Stir ingredients together, strain over large ice cube. Top with prosecco.

[page]BERTO SANTORO
EXTRA VIRGIN
The trend: “Session” cocktails
Why: Because you don’t need to get drunk to have a good time.

When Extra Virgin’s Berto Santoro tells me that his favorite trend is “session” cocktails, or shims, I have no idea what he’s talking about.

“It’s just a word for a low-ABV cocktail,” he explains. In other words, it’s a cocktail that uses a low-proof liqueur, vermouth, aperitif or digestif in place of a base spirit to keep the alcohol content down. Santoro is developing a whole list of drinks such as these for his summer menu.

“I think that there’s a time and a place for a strong cocktail,” Santoro says, “but there’s a time and a place for a low-alcohol cocktail, too. You can sit on the patio and drink a bunch of them and not be hammered, so there’s a sustainability aspect. You can drink five shims and drive and not be over the limit, but you’re still out, you’re still having a good time, you’re still being responsible. I think people want to be responsible — they have that desire, and shims are a path to that.”

To prove his point, Santoro builds a dreamy drink in front of me. His base spirit is a sweet dessert wine called Pineau des Charentes from the Pierre Ferrand brand family; it’s an oak-aged blend of fermented grape must. And at 17 percent ABV, it’s the perfect centerpiece of his shim.

“I was in Cognac back in 2014, and that was the first time I tasted it,” Santoro says. “We — me, Ryan Maybee, Scott Tipton and a couple other guys — were sitting outside on a gorgeous, warm day with Guillaume Lamy, the Pierre Ferrand ambassador for the U.S., and we drank an entire bottle of that stuff.”

Santoro’s cocktail — the appropriately named One Fine Day — mixes Pineau des Charentes with orange bitters, lemon juice and his own housemade tropical green-tea syrup. It does not last long in front of me, but Santoro assures me that I have nothing to fear.

“You could drink 10 of these and it wouldn’t be a problem,” he says. Another bar guest a few seats away, who is enjoying the same cocktail, has been watching our interaction, and she fervently agrees with his statement: “I probably will!” she says cheerfully.

But Santoro has another trend on his mind, and as he makes another shim for me — this one with Cocchi Americano (an aperitif wine) — he lays it down.

“I think there’s a return to hospitality that’s growing in popularity,” he says, maintaining eye contact while he shakes out two more drinks. “Six or seven years ago, when it became popular to be a bartender again and pre-Prohibition cocktails were hot and higher education of bartenders became the standard, some people lost their bartending skills to become mixologists. There was such pretension — you’d go to a bar, and someone would order a Cosmo, and the bartender would stick their nose up. I was guilty of it, just like anyone else.”

Without skipping a beat, Santoro has poured my drink and a drink for my photographer, acknowledged two new bar guests, delivered menus and checked in with a food order for another patron. He seems to have three different, comfortable conversations going on in tandem, and he hasn’t lost his smile since I sat down.

“I feel like we’re finally at a point now where we’re not doing that anymore,” he continues, reaching for a new ticket and preparing another cocktail. “Now, if someone orders a Cosmo, you’re going to give them the best Cosmo that they’ve ever had rather than turning your nose up at them. Because at the end of the day, they’re here to have a good time, and as a bartender, you’re here to make sure that happens. If that means giving them the drink they want, why wouldn’t you do it?”

It’s a convincing argument, I admit. And I consider what I want — another drink — and the call of other responsibilities. I weigh my options. Perhaps another shim.

ONE FINE DAY
1 1/2 ounces Pineau des Charentes (from Pierre Ferrand)
2 dashes Suze orange bitters
3/4 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce house-made tropical green-tea syrup (sub a flavored simple syrup at home)
1–1 1/2 ounces seltzer water

Shake ingredients, strain over ice. Top with seltzer water. Garnish with brandied cherries and orange wheel.