Can I get you a cocktail?

By Frank Whitman

My son recently sent me a feel-better gift while I was coming back from a hip replacement. (Doing great, thanks.)  He didn’t know that the meds at that stage didn’t allow for cocktails when he thoughtfully sent the cheer-me-up makings for Tropical Negronis.  

The Negroni is a classic cocktail made with equal parts of gin, sweet vermouth and Campari stirred with ice, poured over rocks and served with a slice of orange. Its Italian flavors and heritage has always been part of the cocktail canon but has had a resurgence with the younger crowd in the last few years.

In broader terms, the recipe calls for gin, a sweet herbal aperitif, and a bitter amaro. The combination is complex, refreshing and powerful. 

There is a store in San Francisco whose specialty is putting together atypical spirits to fit into a classic cocktail recipe – in this case the Tropical Negroni. At Bitters and Bottles an impressive collection of small batch spirits across the spectrum of style and flavor is available.  In addition, they match up favorite bottles into cocktail sets that offer new flavors on old ideas. They’re happy to ship. 

Under the catchy moniker of the B & B Negroni Club, they offer a bakers dozen of kits including themes like the Beach Blush Negroni, Tart & Wild Negroni, Napa Negroni, Blonde Negroni, and Golden Hour Negroni in addition to the Tropical Negroni.  Kit prices range from $70 to $110 for the three bottles.

The Tropical kit included Bimini Coconut gin from Biddeford, Maine, Heirloom Pineapple Amaro from Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, and Oso De Oro Red Vermouth from Lompac, California – a trio that reached from coast to coast.

Coconut, a good partner with the juniper-forward gin, was bolstered by grapefruit, hops, and coriander. Caramel pineapple richness balanced the traditional bitter bite of the Heirloom amaro. The surprisingly dry and lean Red Vermouth included such exotic flavors as blood orange, chamomile, and Hummingbird Sage among its 19 botanicals.

After the alcohol-medication conflict was resolved, we mixed up a batch. As promised, the flavors of the tropics jumped out of the glass in a complex and winning combination.  The drink, poured over one large spherical ice cube, went down much easier than a traditional negroni.  But isn’t that the whole idea behind tropical drinks?  

Cocktails are popular these days, largely at the expense of wine. My email is filled with news about wineries with too much wine going bankrupt, closing, or selling old stock at distress pricing. Well-established names like Gundlach-Bundschu, Signerollo, Rosenthal and Chalone are reorganizing, shutting down or moving production. Recently, I got an email offering library vintage wines from the legendary Turley Wine Cellars at sale prices.  Who would have thought. 

The drink menu at RyeBird in Fairfield tells the story. (Lunch was excellent.  More on that another time.)  The restaurant, in the center of town, is clearly aimed at a younger demographic interested in cocktails. Behind the bar shelves of spirits line up the full length of the wall and almost up to the ceiling. Cult bourbons, small batch ryes, smokey mezcals, and fancy gins line up beside exotic flavoring ingredients.

A look at the menu and you know what’s going on. Twenty three cocktails overshadow a dozen wines. Mango Mojito, Beach Ball Spritz and a Spicy West Coast Margarita are a few of the tempting signature cocktails. There are also categories for house classics including riffs on Martinis, Old Fashioneds, and Manhattans.  All the drinks are priced at $13, a couple bucks less than the glasses of wine. They’re encouraging cocktail experimentation. 

This shift in drinking is putting the squeeze on the wine trade. Consumption is down world wide. It seems to me that we treated wine as a commodity, and that’s part of the problem. “I’ll have a glass of white wine or chardonnay, or pinot grigio or pinot noir” is an often heard restaurant request. Without caring where the wine is from, who made it or the story behind it, the wine becomes ordinary. Meanwhile, cocktails with their menu descriptions, exotic ingredients and unusual flavors have stepped in to fill the gap.  

Trends come and go in the drinks business, like wide, narrow and finally no neckties.  Cocktails have come forward, shouldering wine aside.  They’re fun and tasty, but not food friendly.  I’m all for a Negroni before dinner, that’s why cocktails were invented, but with the food, I’m still a wine guy.