The Elixir of Attitude
It’s the best martini you’ll ever drink. Or is it? Technically it’s a spin-off: The Better Call Saul of martinis. E.B. White called the classic martini “the elixir of quietude.” Sounds like a snooze fest. I’m calling this varietal “the elixir of attitude.”
I’ve been on a tear of discovering off-kilter cocktails. Go where the energy is, right?
Worn, reclaimed wood, beams as if from Noah’s Ark, cathedral-like ceilings, French lamplights hanging from the walls, cozy walnut booths, a grand marble bar with brass fittings with the heft of splendor, and that incandescent lighting—it all contributes to the pleasant mood I find myself in. A bartender with a pharmacist’s lab coat greets me with the decorum of the ’70s and the evil efficiency of capitalism.
This is a bar (Le Crocodile) you visit and think, I’d like to run something like this one day if I pooped caviar. This is the bar with the capital B, capital D, Beverage Director, whose name sounds like an obscure crayon color plus avant-garde film production company: Teal Mandalay, Vermillion Arwin, Saffron Whitewater, Orchid Savoy, Navy Hemdale.
The menu is paper velvet. I cannot stop sifting it between my fingers, as if searching for an undiscovered proto-molecule. This is a place too rich for my blood, but I’m obsessed.
I rest my forearms on the old marble, and immediately slump into its embrace. I have become a patron. The last cocktail on the menu is listed as simply “Alaska.”
It captured my attention as quickly as the bar had arrested me. The bartender, in tune with her bar’s activity, aware of its fluctuating sensibilities, swiftly walks over to me to explain that the “Alaska” is not in fact a custom innovation (nor a classic cocktail) but one that has made its rounds.
A mix of Terroir Gin, Dry Vermouth de Chambery, yellow Chartreuse, and lemon oil, this drink drinks you. It is a satin sheet of the highest quality. Think luxurious thread count in the mouth. Described as “a martini that walked through an enchanted forest,” the Alaska is a treat to the senses. A cocktail that achieves the optimal balance of herb, poise, booze, texture, and savor.
Served up, the silk-laden creamy mouthfeel imparted from the lemon oil keeps you sipping until you’re staring at the bottom of the coupe.
“If you are an adherent of the martini, you will love this take, which is a bit more herbaceous. It will fulfill your curiosity,” says Dennis Oehl, the bartender with the pharmacist’s whitecoat.
Asking about this cocktail, I may have started a bit of a tiff between bartenders, which is, to be honest, entertaining to watch. They’re debating over proportions and measurements. If you’re at a fancy cocktail bar with a fancy ceiling, and you order a fancy drink named the Alaska, you kind of want two bartenders to go at it, have a full-on parliamentary hearing over the blueprint of the drink. Because you’re already here and you’re paying for it. It’s all part of the merriment. Tomorrow, it’ll be a dive bar, and you’ll shoot some Jamo with the disgruntled bartender/owner/uber driver/father of six in a neighborhood haunt in the old seaport, but today, because it doesn’t happen that often, you let yourself be grand.
Chaser:
A spritz of lemon oil really amplifies the experience of the drink. Just gives it that silky texture. Mouthfeel. It’s all about mouthfeel. Yes, I said mouthfeel. Not every bar will do it or have it on hand, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. I feel like if you’re dishing out $47/cocktail, you deserve spritzes of whatever you want.
