With Mardi Gras season upon us, carnival lovers are getting into the spirit. At Harvest in Richmond Heights, general manager William Kunderman and lead bartender Veronica Schuster immediately began fashioning their play on the New Orleans signature Sazerac when a bottle of new-to-the-market spirit Skinos fell into their hands.
Skinos is made from the sap of the mastic trees that grow in the Greek island of Chios. Skino boasts a distinctive scent of pine, plus a hint of juniper berry. The evergreen quality is stronger on the nose than on the palate, however, with flowery sweetness melding with the flavor of buttery pine. Those attributes led Kunderman and Schuster to consider Skinos as a substitute for the absinthe wash required in a Sazerac, typically built these days from rye whiskey, Peychaud’s Bitters, simple syrup, a wash of absinthe and a lemon garnish.
For their Sazerac masquerade called Chios in the Rye, the crew at Harvest used Rittenhouse Rye, simple syrup, the super-scenty Greek spirit and a flamed peel of an heirloom mandarin orange to release über floral oils.
Mardi Gras revelers will find the Chios in the Rye on Harvest’s latest cocktail menu. Another newbie to try is the Gotham Blonde, a take on a Manhattan using Death’s Door White Whisky and Dolin Blanc Vermouth with a house-made maraschino grape garnish, through the end of March.
This article appears in February 2011.