This summer, bartender Ted Kilgore of Taste by Niche rolled out a first for St. Louis spirits when he batched up a couple cocktails – a variation on a Negroni and the Holy Molé combination of Wild Turkey rye whiskey, amaro, green Chartreuse and chocolate mole bitters – and aged them in whiskey barrels. But, as we reported in our August Elixir column, Kilgore had three barrels. What happened with cask No. 3?
Kilgore made a reposado tequila. “Basically, I started with a blanco and made a malted barley reposado,” said Kilgore, who described his DIY aged tequila as “super salty” with “lots of nuances.” Best of all, he’s bottling the new-and-improved spirit this week, so expect to see “Ted’s Tequila” (we’re thinkin’ perhaps he should put a trademark on it) used in cocktails at Taste in the days and weeks ahead.
The innovative barrel-aging project is only just getting started as Kilgore readies Taste for the December move to bigger space in the Central West End next to sister establishment, Brasserie. Next up, Kilgore will be aging a wet martini. And if you haven’t tried the Unusal Negroni or the Holy Molé, no worries. The second batches of each are already on the bar shelves (though Kilgore rightly reserved a couple bottles for a special sumpin’-sumpin’). He considers the second go-round of Unusal Negroni even better than the first, having left the latter to age nearly eight weeks as opposed to dumping it just shy of six weeks, as he did with the first batch.
All of our coverage of Ted Kilgore
This article appears in Oct 1-31, 2010.