{Moll’s Cup No. 3}
The bar top at Little Country Gentleman looks like a veritable apothecary, with bottles of house-made tinctures, infusions, syrups, shrubs and liqueurs, each labeled with a piece of masking tape and a Sharpie. “I like to keep as many things in the bar as proprietary as possible,” LCG bar manager Jeffrey Moll told me during a recent visit to the Clayton restaurant. Tonight, Moll debuts his latest DIY project: a line of bottled cocktails inspired by the Pimm’s Cup – a refreshing, warm-weather sipper that combines Pimm’s liqueur, club soda or ginger ale, and plenty of fresh fruit.
British in origin, Pimm’s No. 1 is a gin-based aperitif flavored with a secret recipe of fruit liqueurs and herbs. A succession of other Pimm’s have come and gone – No. 2 was made with scotch, No. 3 was brandy-based, No. 4 used rum, No. 5 rye whiskey and No. 6 was a vodka version. Though No. 1 is the only bottle you’ll find on liquor store shelves these days, Moll wanted to honor Pimm’s long history with his own line of liqueurs aptly titled – you guessed it – Moll’s.
He started with a tequila base for Moll’s Cup No. 1 and turned to Barbancourt Rhum for No. 2. For Moll’s Cup No. 3 – the first to hit the LCG menu tonight – bourbon was his bedrock. To it, he added Dubonnet (a French wine fortified with quinine), a cinnamon stick, fresh orange wedges and bitter orange peel, and let everything marry for a good 72 hours.
But concocting the liqueur was just the first stage. A Pimm’s Cup is properly served with a hefty garnish of fresh fruit (cucumber is good too, as are herbs). For his Moll’s Cup, Moll wanted to show the same care to the fruit as he had to the alcohol. Since drinkers aren’t willing to wait all day for a handcrafted cocktail and ornately presented fruit, he decided to bottle the drink in individual servings. That way, when an order came in, he’d have the elixir ready and could spend extra moments doing right by the fruit.
The final step: the bubbles. Since a Pimm’s Cup is traditionally topped with club soda or ginger ale, Moll decided to carbonate his concoction, adding ginger-infused water and a house-made anise-flavored aperitif to each bottle.
The result: a refreshing highball that can just as equally pass for a fancy fruit cocktail. Bring your dessert fork.
— photo by Michelle Volansky
This article appears in May 2013.