Bartender Bingo

The drink: Red, White, and Rye Photo: JOEL VEAK

A few weeks ago, my behind-the-bar colleague at Temple Bar Evan Kenney was messing around with a cocktail that called for both mezcal and Fernet-Branca, two ingredients that are reliably trendy among pretentious bar geeks — aka people like me.

“That sounds gross,” I thought. “Get it right in my belly.”

Then I started thinking about ways to push that recipe even further and make an amusing parody of a cocktail nerd’s order. (Think of it as “Shit Bartenders Say: The Cocktail!”) So together with Temple Bar’s Sam Gabrielli, we created a drink called Bartender Bingo. It’s made with 1.5 ounces of Old Overholt rye and .5 ounces each of Fernet, Maraschino, Yellow Chartreuse, lime, and lemon, plus a dash each of orange, Peychaud’s, and Angostura bitters, all in a glass rinsed with mezcal. It was surprisingly not disgusting and, more important, made me look like a super-pompous dickhead every time I ordered it somewhere else that week.

But maybe we weren’t maximizing the potential of all those much-hyped ingredients? So I turned to some fellow cocktail nerds, challenging them to create a drink that used as many selections as possible from an ingredient list that would make any bar geek pop a boner. Incidentally, there are no losers. But the winner? That’s you — because now you get to go out and order all of these. You’re welcome.

Ginny Edwards, Back Bay Social Club

The drink: Red, White, and Rye

Bar-nerd number: 4.5

Description: “The concept for the cocktail is simple: a stroll through an herb or vegetable garden on fire,” explains Edwards. “There’s more pretension there than you could shake a stick at.”

Ingredients:

1.5 oz. Rittenhouse rye

.75 oz. Yellow Chartreuse

.75 oz. Cynar

2 dashes of celery bitters

Atomized mezcal

Lemon twist

The process: Add all ingredients (except mezcal) in a dry pint glass, add ice, and stir. Spray an empty single rocks glass with two to three spritzes of mezcal and strain the drink into the glass. Finish with a lemon twist.

The Challenge

Create the trendiest cocktail imaginable by using as many 
bar-nerd-approved ingredients 
as possible from this list.

• Rye, mezcal, fernet, Carpano Antica Formula, Chartreuse, Cynar, and Cocchi Americano: 1 point each

•Shrubs (sweetened vinegar-based mixers) and lesser-known 
bitters: .5 point each

John Henderson, Scholars

The drink: The Violent Tome or The Cocktail Formerly Known as Hip

Bar-nerd number: 6.0

Description: Henderson scores big points for hitting pretty much every ingredient we asked for. The result falls somewhere between two beloved classics, a Toronto and a Last Word. “It’s semi-sweet and dark with some nice complex herbal notes,” says Henderson.

Ingredients:

1.5 oz. Bulleit rye

.5 oz. Fernet-Branca

.5 oz. Green Chartreuse

.5 oz. Carpano Antica Formula

.25 oz. Cynar

10 drops of Bittermens Orchard Street Celery Shrub

2 dashes of Regans’ Orange Bitters

The process: Stir, strain up, and garnish with a flamed orange disk.

Dave Werthman, West Side Lounge

The drink: Fiasco

Bar-nerd number: 3.0

Description: We had to give Werthman an extra half-point for combining the quinine-based aperitif wine Bonal Gentiane-Quina with Antica and balancing the sweetness of Calvados with the bitterness of the Cynar. Sexy like bar porn.

Ingredients:

1 oz. Calvados

.5 oz. Carpano Antica Formula

.25 oz. Bonal Gentiane-Quina

.25 oz. house apricot shrub

.25 oz. lemon

.25 oz. Cynar

Ginger-water rinse

The process: Combine all ingredients except the Cynar and ginger water. Double-strain into a martini glass with the rinse. Garnish with an orange medallion.

Kevin Mabry, jm Curley

The drink: Lava Pot

Bar-nerd number: 3.0

Description: The only thing your stereotypical bartender likes more than a bitter cocktail is spicy food. Mabry earns a full bonus point for infusing Aperol with 10 whole chilies for 48 hours. “The final product on its own is dynamite,” says Mabry. “The heat of the chilies plays off the bitterness and round sweetness of the Aperol.”

Ingredients:

1.25 oz. Fidencio Clásico Mezcal

.75 oz. Thai-chili Aperol

.5 oz. kumquat shrub

.5 oz. lime

Dash of grapefruit bitters

Cayenne-salt rim

The process: Shake in tin and strain into an ice-filled and salt-rimmed rocks glass.

Got an idea for Liquid? Email lukeoneil47@gmail.com.