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Shaken & stirred

by G.A. Benton

McCormick & Schmick's Basil Grape Smash

Are you still lapping up Cosmopolitans and imagining yourself to be hip? Do you stare across a pick-up bar with mirror-honed bedroom eyes working up a thin, noirish smile and clutching a kiddie-sweet KoolAid-tini in your sticky mitts?

If so, maybe it's time you moved on to a more happening, more grown-up savory cocktail. I mean, really, Appletinis are so 20th century.

OK, I'm kidding. Mostly. Yes, I think people should be able to drink whatever the hell they want; still, there is a pretty sharp movement toward unsweet mixed drinks in the cutting edge taverns of busy metropolitan centers.

Cruising some of these cocktail cathedrals when in New York last month, I was able to taste all sorts of delicious wet refreshers. Right now in the Big Apple, it's all about a panoply of hooch-enhancing bitters and fresh-squeezed fruit juices and how those combine with gins and ryes.

Now, I'm not one to leap onto the newest trend unless it actually make sense, and these kinds of flavor combinations clearly make my boozy tongue jump for joy.

Unfortunately, many local watering holes are still concocting cocktails stuck in a sweet-tooth gear. I guess that's OK now and then. Fortunately, someone's recently decided to catch that big-city wave—and it's an upscale chain fish house of all places.

McCormick & Schmick's, the reliable Portland, Oregon, import, has recently launched a great new drinks menu, and I got a chance to taste a few of them the other night.

I definitely approve. I've always known that M&S made good drinks—I was a big fan of their margaritas made with Cointreau and squeezed-in-front-of-me orange and lime juices. But M&S's new cocktail menu takes things several steps forward. And backward.

I say this because the new libations list celebrates the gradual development of our country's many original cocktail creations, which M&S calls "one of America's most substantial contributions to the culinary arts." I guess that means cocktails trump Ho-hos.

M&S's new drinks menu is thoughtfully subdivided into timelines and every single potable is given a paragraph explaining its origins—call it history with a happy hour. Believe me, learning never went down so easily.

Under the header "Early Golden Years of 1806-1920," you are informed that the Old-Fashioned Whiskey cocktail was recognized and recorded as the first mixed drink in 1806 (making me want to have a bicentennial moment), that the Manhattan was created in 1874 and that the Sazerac (one of my favorites) came into being in New Orleans.

The next age of super sips on the menu is "Prohibition Era of 1920 and beyond." It was during the flapper era when the popularity of cocktails began brimming over because the mixers in the liquors helped cover up the noxious flavors of bathtub gin.

Ironically, as I sat in M&S sipping these drinks and learning all about this new stuff, I kept forgetting old stuff—like how I was going to get home.

OK, how do these drinks taste? Like I said I love bitters in drinks and feel they are underutilized. And as I also said, M&S uses freshly squeezed juices, so they can't really fail. Plus, M&S wisely practices gun control—meaning they don't shoot syrupy stuff out of one of those hand-held unmagic bar wands that other places are cheaply fond of. So yes, I loved M&S's Sazerac with its Peychauds and Angostura bitters bringing out the spiciness in the rye whiskey.

And I had a nice ride on the Moscow Mule. Made with Stoli, fresh lime and soda, it was like an adult limeade. The Pegu Club Cocktail was a super citrusy and spicy treat jiggered with gin, Angostura and orange bitters and fresh lime and orange curacao. The unusual but intriguing Basil Grape Smash used fresh basil like a mojito does mint.

I liked it, but speaking of "smash," I can't make out much of my tasting notes after drinking that one. I can report that the Bellini was not overly sweet, and the Kentucky Speedbump was fine and that the Manhattan is the real deal and that the Guava Sexy was pretty great and that a cab from Easton to my front door costs a small fortune.

The moral of this story is to enjoy only a couple of M&S's excellent cocktails but do that with some of M&S's good food to help give you ballast. Well that, and maybe you should bring along a designated driver who doesn't mind listening to an improvised Johnny Cash medley sung way off-key on the long drive home.

March 29th, 2007

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