Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, Coffee And Cigarettes!

In which your bartender wanders abroad and is humbled.

Literally a good sign that this is a quality bar.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender, and I have been humbled by the amazing bartending staff at Cloak and Dagger, a fantastic bar in Cleveland. I had the pleasure of hanging out there with my co-workers this week, and one of the bartenders snuck a cocktail onto my table that had me hanging my head in shame. I generally give the recipe up front in these articles, but let me set the scene here — this one deserves a little buildup.

Cloak and Dagger is working on a level I don’t quite dare approach at Hemingway’s yet. We’re the first real cocktail bar in Medina, an exurb of Cleveland. My creative approach has focused on updating classics, making them unique and exciting while still approachable by cocktail novices. Cloak and Dagger’s audience comes from the heart of Cleveland; they’re in a position to take more risks.

When I sat down with the rest of the Hemingway’s staff for our biweekly “Industry Safety Meeting” (aka pub crawl), I had no idea what any of the cocktails tasted like. Without the help of our server, I would have been completely lost. Our floor manager ordered a “Cut Through The Gunfire” — a concoction that featured coconut oil-washed vodka, cachaca, smoked panela caramel, passionfruit nectar, orange cream citrate, bitters, and palo santo smoke. Mystified? Me too. Once I saw the drink and tasted it, it started to make sense. This was a rounded, smoky, balanced Porn Star Martini. The coconut wasn’t prominent, but it provided a rich mouth feel that balanced out the smokiness and completed the drink. Porn star martinis are served with a shot of champagne as a palate cleanser; this drink didn’t need it.

It tasted as good as the picture looks.

I decided to take a chance on the Fireball! — a drink with some tiki elements I recognized. It was a spectacular glass, but the flavors went in some directions I hadn’t anticipated. There were echoes of a Mai Tai or Saturn here, but through the looking glass. Coffee orgeat and a spray of underberg were definitely new frontiers for me.

Sorry the picture was so blurry. It was my third drink of the night. A lot of things were getting blurry.

Working through a complex cocktail menu with a crew of skilled bartenders is an amazing experience. Drinks get passed around the table, sniffed, tasted, oohed and ahed over, and passed around again. Notes get taken. Gossip about customers gets shared. I was reminded that I work shoulder to shoulder with some of the most creative mixologists I’ve ever known. I am a very, very lucky man.

As the evening was winding down, Ethan, our bartender, came by to hang out with us. I decided to be bold and ask him to build a cocktail based on a theme: “Coffee and cigarettes.” He smiled and dashed back behind the bar, clearly inspired. The drink he produced was amazing — smoky, bitter, spicy, with a rich mouth feel and hints of coffee midway through the drink. We passed it around the table, mystified by the ingredients. Rye whiskey? Smoke infusion? Tobacco bitters? Crème de cacao?

He came back and listened to our guesses. “0 for 4,” he replied, and rattled off the recipe. We all howled with laughter.

Bartender shot. Congrats, Ethan. You knocked it out of the park.

Coffee And Cigarettes
Written by Ethan Lindenberger, Cloak and Dagger

1 oz Planteray 3 Star rum

¾ oz Mr. Black coffee liquor

½ oz Benedictine

½ oz Malort

½ oz Cynar

¼ oz Ardbeg scotch

2 dashes Angostura bitters

2 dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Sage

Burn the sage with a kitchen torch on a plate or cutting board until it smoulders. Upend a Nick and Nora glass over the sage and let the smoke coat the inside of the glass. Shake and double-strain the remaining ingredients into the glass.

I’m a huge rum fan. I’m practically the Malort spokesperson at Hemingway’s. And Ethan had passed me a rum and Malort cocktail that I failed to recognize. This was a brilliant riff on the 100-Year-Old Cigar, a drink that I’ve enjoyed in the past, with a few brilliant additions. I was truly humbled and impressed. Our “safety meeting” demonstrated to me that, as a bartender, I still have a lot to learn and far to go. I couldn’t be happier. There’s so much further to go on the journey.

Let’s talk ingredients; without putting words in Ethan’s mouth, I’ll offer my best guesses to what choices he made.

Planetary Rum: A semi-dry foundation lays the groundwork for all the spice and bitterness to follow. I could see using a mild Jamaican white rum like Probitas here as well.

Mr. Black Coffee Liquor: Ethan used Borghetti; I’m fonder of Mr. Black. Either works well. This is one of two diversions Ethan took from the classic 100-year-old cigar recipe, and it added some sweetness he needed to control.

Benedictine: Sweetness, richness, and herbal notes to expand the basic theme of the drink.

Malort: Here’s the dirty secret with Malort — it’s terribly bitter, but once you get past the hype, that bitterness becomes a usable tool. Here, it pushes back the sweetness of the coffee liquor and re-establishes the bitterness needed in the glass. Well, that and Ethan got a chance to dunk on a table full of bartenders. Both work.

Cynar: This artichoke-based amaro is a great “secret ingredient” in dark cocktails. Cynar defines the 100-year-old cigar cocktail and evokes tobacco flavors beautifully.

Ardbeg: A peaty Islay Scotch adds a lot of smoke flavor to this glass.

Bitters: The Angostura and Peychaud’s bring herbal sweetness and smooth over the rough patches of the cocktail. The 100-year-old cigar uses an absinthe rinse in the glass; the Peychaud’s is a solid substitute.

Sage: The fresh smoke hits your nose and palate immediately when you taste this drink. This is the smoke component that really makes the “cigarette” portion of the cocktail work.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by and I’ll make a drink for you … or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette.

OPEN THREAD!