Manhattan has always had first class chefs who love to experiment and create new taste combinations. Now some Big Apple bartenders are taking their lead, infusing vodka and other liquors with unusual flavors – everything from horseradish to pineapple.
“You can go out and get a gourmet meal any time you want in Manhattan but trying to get a great drink is a different story,” says Julie Reiner, bartender and manager of C-3 Restaurant/Lounge (103 Waverly Place), whose fabulous infused drinks are creating quite a stir.
“Instead you get pretty people behind bars who aren’t trained to do their jobs, serving you mixed drinks with Rose’s lime juice or cranberry juice on a gun.
“You end up with something that tastes like a Jolly Rancher.”
Not so at C-3, where infusing liquor with fruits and spices has become a labor of love for the Hawaiian-born Reiner.
The intimate downtown spot is part of the Washington Square Hotel, but the bar caters mostly to locals hooked on creative cocktails, like the subtle and delicious Big Apple Martini ($9), apple-infused vodka served in a liqueur-sprayed martini glass with a slice of apple, or the sweet, tropical pineapple martini ($9), pineapple-infused vodka served straight up.
To prepare the infusions, Reiner steeps fruit in sealed containers of vodka for two weeks or more, then strains the concoctions and rebottles them. It’s a time-consuming process but the results make the wait worthwhile.
“I have a beer cooler that looks like a science experiment – it’s filled with all these sealed buckets labeled with dates and ingredients,” says Reiner. “But that’s what accounts for the popularity of the bar – people really love the fact that you took the time to create these drinks for them.”
While vodka is the most popular alcohol to infuse because of its neutral quality and tendency to absorb other flavors, any kind of liquor can be used.
At the trendy Flatiron-district eatery AZ (21 West 17th Street), drink director Dan Perlman infuses rum with a Chinese spice blend, gin with plums, tequila with cumquats as well as the more traditional vodka with lemons. The infusions are displayed in large glass kegs above the bar.
“The infused drinks have been popular for years, but the magazines and newspapers are really picking up on them now,” says Perlman. “We mostly make use of them in our specialty cocktails.”
Some of the more popular specials include the Dark and Ztormy ($10), infused Bacardi Gold mixed with ginger beer, and the Metro AZ ($10), a variation on the Metropolitan with the lemon-infused vodka mixed with blackberry liqueur and lemon juice.
While C-3 and AZ primarily use their infusions in mixes, at the Russian Vodka Room (265 W 52nd St.) infused vodkas are generally served straight up.
“We have nine kinds of infused vodkas,” says Khaled Al-Maamar, the bar’s manager. “Everything from peach and apricot to garlic, pepper and dill.”
Al-Maamar says that the cranberry-infused vodka is by far the most popular among the Vodka Room’s habitues.
And the price is right – an infused 16 mm vodka shot is only $4.50, or $2.25 during Happy Hour (every day 4 pm-7pm).
“Many of our Russian regulars enjoy the horseradish-infused vodka, although it’s a bit anti-social,” jokes Al-Maamar, 53, who hails from Yalta in the Ukraine.
Horseradish-infused vodka? If that’s a popular choice, it begs the question – are there any infusions that are just too odd for even the most esoteric tastes?
Al-Maamar says that his coriander-infused vodka wasn’t a big hit.
“It tasted . . . unusual,” he recalls gravely.
At AZ, the lemon-grass and kafir lime leaf-infused vodka was met with resounding indifference.
And Reiner remembers that her fig-infused vodka didn’t exactly send C-3 regulars into fits of ecstasy.
“But that’s the beauty of it – experimenting with different flavors,” she says.
“Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t.”
-ends-