LESSER-KNOWN GLOBAL SPIRITS TAKE THE DRINK MENU TO THE NEXT LEVEL In today’s global, always-connected, food-driven culture, it can be hard to surprise consumers. Foodies often feel like they have seen and done it all – what’s left to discover? And yet, still only a small percentage of international ingredients and flavors have cracked the U.S. market. Few consumers have heard of spirits like poitín, horilka and kvass. But these types of global ingredients are exactly what restaurants and bars are seeking out, trying to discover the next hot cuisine or flavor. In fact, the drink menu has long been one of the most international parts of any menu, being home to Irish whiskeys, Mexican tequilas, Russian vodkas and cocktails like Italian Bellinis and Spanish sangrias. This makes the drink menu a natural for “next level” flavors – the types of innovative, lesser-known spirits that on-trend bartenders are seeking out to set themselves apart, yet with relatable elements that make them less of a leap for the consumer. Let’s take a trip around the world to discover innovative spirits that can freshen up any drink program.
Mexico and Latin America In recent years, spirits from Mexico and Latin America (beyond the well-known tequilas and rums) have been particularly successful in making the leap to 76
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U.S. menus, due both to the regions’ proximity to the United States and the popularity of Latin flavors on American menus. Spirits like pisco, essential to the pisco sour, and cachaça, the main ingredient in the caipirinha, have already made inroads on drink menus in this country. According to a last year’s issue of Datassential’s World Bites publication covering Brazil, over a third of U.S. consumers want to try a caipirinha at a restaurant. And now bartenders and drink program managers are seeking out even lesser-known flavors, like sotol, distilled from the wild desert spoon plant in northern Mexico, which takes 12-15 years to mature. Produced in the same manner as tequila and mezcal, sotol’s flavor is often described as smoky, fruity and grassy. At The Original Ninfa’s, in Houston, Texas, it’s used in place of tequila in the Sotol Margarita, with Hacienda de Chihuahua sotol plata, fresh lime juice and guava.
Western Europe A number of lesser-known European spirits can help take already-popular drink options to the next level. Ireland’s poitín (pronounced “poteen” or “pocheen”) is often called “Irish moonshine,” putting it at the intersection of two hot drink trends – whiskey