Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week’s Cocktail, The Black Garlic Martini!

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. We’ve just flipped the menu at Hemingway’s, and there are some banging savory cocktails on the menu for fall. I had a chance to taste some of the other bartenders’ work, and I have to brag about Kiki Kunarac’s new cocktail. Kiki’s been a part of Hemingway’s as long as I have, and her sense of taste and proportion always impress me. Let’s talk about her Black Garlic cocktail. I love this drink. Here’s the recipe.

Black Garlic Cocktail

(Kristen Kunarac, Author)

2 oz black pepper-infused vodka

1 oz Hayman’s Old Tom Gin

½ oz dry vermouth

Pinch smoked sea salt

1 garlic clove

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Muddle the garlic clove. Double-strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with drops of extra virgin olive oil and a grind of fresh black pepper.

Black Pepper Infused Vodka

3 tablespoons cracked coarse black pepper

750 ml Luksusowa vodka

Add pepper to vodka and let sit 24 hours. Strain into a clean bottle before service.

I should note that this isn’t a “black garlic” cocktail per se. Black garlic is made of carefully fermented garlic cloves; it’s a sticky, molasses-like form of garlic. This cocktail uses black pepper and raw garlic cloves. It’s a “Black” and “Garlic” cocktail, not a “Black Garlic” cocktail, if that makes any sense.

With that out of the way, this cocktail is going to be an amazing food pairing. Black pepper is good with everything. Garlic is great with everything. This drink is going to be killer with beef, or lamb, or … well, just about everything on our menu. It’s such a beautiful piece of work; Kiki deserves to be proud.

What I love about this cocktail is how it uses the Old Tom gin and dry vermouth to announce, loudly, that this drink is a martini before getting down to business. I love classic martinis. I’ve come to the conclusion that juniper in a classic dry gin is there to wake up your palate and announce that you’re about to taste a really good drink. Old Tom gins are similar to classic gins like Beefeater and Bombay, but better balanced and more definitive in flavor. Hayman’s Old Tom gin really does hit the mark here. It’s crisp and herbaceous without tasting like Pine-Sol. I am shamelessly stealing this approach the next time I write a martini.

The change in Hemingway’s menu is a bit startling. We’ve gone from 60+ cocktails to just 20, and the focus in our menu is impressive. Three of the cocktails on the current menu are savory — this black garlic cocktail, the Filthiest Martini Ever, and a blue cheese cocktail that I’m dying to share with you later this fall. For the first time ever, Hemingway’s has no Malort cocktails listed. It’s a more mature cocktail list, less edgy, more formal. I’m a little sad about that, but I’m convinced it’s the right choice. Our audience skews older. We’re meeting them where they live. And a new hotel is opening up across the street, with a steakhouse on the first floor. This menu will be perfect for that sort of clientele.

Not that we’re throwing out any cocktails, mind you. As I’ve told guests before, “We’ve got a database, and we aren’t afraid to use it.” We’ve got all our old recipes on file, and every one of our bartenders is good enough to write a drink on the fly for a picky customer. The Regrettable Tattoo is not going away. Neither is Malort. You’ll just have to know what to ask for, who to trust, and what to expect when you leave the printed menu behind. Exactly what you want from a classic speakeasy.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Black Pepper Vodka: A neutral potato vodka like Luksusowa is a must here. Tito’s would be far too sweet and mellow to serve as a base for a black pepper spirit. If you love black pepper as I do, this little treat will find all sorts of uses in your liquor cabinet. We were drinking it neat at Hemingway’s for “quality control” before making the first cocktail.

Hayman’s Old Tom Gin: Feel free to use Bombay or Beefeater here, but the impact of that first note of the cocktail will be muddled. Do not use Hendrick’s. Black pepper, rose, and cucumber are not friends.

Dry Vermouth: Always keep your vermouth in the fridge. It’s white wine, not liquor. Leave it out too long, and it gets nasty. We use Dolin, but I’m not too picky about the brand here.

Smoked Sea Salt: A simple saline solution works just fine here. I like smoked sea salt because it plays well with the black pepper and garlic.

Garnish: The oil mellows some of the garlic's harshness, and the grind of pepper adds a spicy aroma to the drink. These garnishes make it very clear that you’re drinking a savory, culinary cocktail tonight.

OPEN THREAD!