NIGHT LIFE // Festival Cocktail Recipes

Night Life // Zest 817

Festival Cocktail Recipes

Here’s a sneak peak at two of the drinks you’ll be enjoying during the Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival and instructions on how to make them.

BY ERIC GRIFFEY

For many, dining well necessarily starts and ends with a well-made cocktail –– and for some on the liquid diet, the drink is the whole meal. As the reach of craft cocktail culture extends to even the most casual diner, these high-quality, labor-intensive throwback elixirs have replaced the reliable gin & tonic or vodka & soda as the go-to way to begin an evening on the town. For this new, Food Network-educated crowd, the old standards just don’t excite the palate the way a Moscow Mule, Old Fashioned, or Negroni can. We may have to stop calling the craft cocktail movement a trend, since seemingly every newly opened restaurant boasts its own unique drink menu.

Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival’s Deserts After Dark event, 9-11pm at Whiskey Ranch (4250 Mitchell Blvd), gives a nod to this new boozy institution. The shindig will host 16 pastry chefs and 14 mixologists who will create special confections and drinks for the festivities. Lisa Little-Adams of Proper (409 W Magnolia Av, 817-984- 1133) and Brad Hensarling of The Usual (1408 W Magnolia Av, 817-810-0114) gave us a preview of what you can expect to see at the bottom of a glass that evening. Do try these at home.

Mixologist/owner Lisa Little-Adams’ cocktail lightens up TX whiskey with fresh fruit flavors and seltzer water.

Photo by Twig Capra

The Circus

BY LISA LITTLE-ADAMS, PROPER

Ingredients

1.5 oz TX Whiskey

.25 oz Grand Marnier Signature Collection No. 2, Raspberry Peach liqueur

.25 oz Raspberry syrup

Chilled seltzer water

Fresh raspberries

Mint

Method

In a tall highball or Collins glass, add 2 fitted cubes of ice and stir approximately 13 times, clockwise. Add syrup, liqueur, and TX Whiskey and one more fitted cube of ice. Ice should reach the top of the glass at this point. Fill the rest of the glass with chilled soda water and stir together with a long spoon. Garnish with a couple raspberries and a small mint bouquet.

Brad Hensarling’s Autumn in Brazil is on the menu of his prohibition cocktail lounge, The Usual, and will be served at the Fort Worth Food + Wine Festival’s Desserts After Dark event.

Photo by Twig Capra

Autumn in Brazil

BY BRAD HENSARLING, THE USUAL

Ingredients

2 oz Auva Amburana

.5 oz Oloroso sherry

.5 oz Cocchi Torino

1 bsp demerara

2 dashes of safron bitters

Orange peel for garnish

Method

In a shaker, combine ingredients (except the orange peel) and stir clockwise until cold. Strain into a Nick & Nora martini glass and serve up. Cut a small swath of orange peel off a navel orange, hold the peel beneath the flame of a match or lighter, and squeeze (express) the juices of the peel directly into the glass –– this will create a small flame. Add the expressed peel into the drink for garnish.

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