CLAY & COCKTAILS

We usually leave new cocktail recipes squarely where they belong – in the ever-capable hands of our bartending team. If we didn’t, everyone would be drinking some version of a vodka soda because that’s all we, as non-bartending restaurant owners, would inevitably come up with on the fly. We firmly submit to, and are living evidence of, the claim that you can’t be good at everything.

But we got weird a couple months ago and veered out of our lane. We bought this sweet little terracotta amphora from a friend who supplies the wine industry with such vessels and handed it over to our head bartender, Scott Foster, with instructions to try filling it with a batch of Negronis and see what would happen. We’re a gin joint, after all. He did, using Cappelletti Aperitivo in place of the usual Campari alongside sweet vermouth and gin in equal parts. He let it sit, tasted, let it sit, tasted some more, and after a number of weeks he handed us a glass.

The resulting product was like honey. It’s undoubtedly a Negroni with its sweet and bitter signature, but it’s round and texturally changed. Not syrupy, but actually honeyed. We can surmise that when held in a porous vessel, air contact smoothed those edges and some evaporation took place. Did the amphora really impart that stoney, minerally, baked clay note to the cocktail, or does the mind just conjure that vision knowing how it was held for weeks on end?

Amphorae have been used for thousands of years to hold and transport liquids, and seem to be used with increasing frequency by winemakers here in Paso as fermentation and aging vessels. Why not for a cocktail? You’ve got to try this thing.

PS – Give Scott behind the bar a high five when you’re in next. He’s the real tastemaker here and full credit is due to him for our incredible spring cocktail menu. He’s also quick with a joke.