For Bartenders, “Dry January” Is the Time To Get Weird
An experimental approach to booze-free cocktails and even decor can help fill seats during the slowest month of the year.
Appearance is important for alcohol-free drinks at the Resort at Pelican Hill in Newport Beach, Calif.
Source: The Resort at Pelican
Dave Arnold has been called the “mad genius” of bartenders, and Existing Conditions, his latest cocktail den in New York’s Greenwich Village, doesn’t disappoint: Arnold and his two co-founders went so far as to import water from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to use in their Paloma cocktail. Then they re-carbonate the already sparkling water with carbon dioxide.
Still, the most eye-opening feature of the menu may be the list of non-alcoholic drinks, all given the same care as the boozy ones. They use such ingredients as leatherwood honey, Mt. Olympus tea, Champagne acid, and comice pear. For a drink described as a “bougie Snapple,” they mix clarified peaches, clarified lime, barley syrup, and umeboshi, or salted Japanese plums. The clarified fruit is enhanced with glycerin, which creates an alcohol-like viscosity. It takes a full day to prep the concoction.