Cocktails don’t always need to be all sweetness and light. Sometimes you crave something a bit more dark and brooding. These creative drinks make use of inherently smoky base spirits like Mezcal and peated Scotch, infuse syrups with wood chips and even light planks on fire to fill rocks glasses with the whiff of a smoldering campfire. Burn, baby, burn
Call Me Snake (left) Recipe courtesy of Sarah Mengoni
Lead Bartender, Double Take
This libation makes use of a Smoking Gun Food Smoker, which draws the smoky air from lit cedar chips into a rocks glass. The glass is then covered with a coaster that looks like a New York City manhole cover – a reference to the movie “Escape from New York” that inspired the drink’s name. “The short amount of time that it takes to carry the drink to the guest is enough time for the flavor of the smoke to really become integrated with the spirits, providing a smoky flavor with every sip,” Mengoni says. • 2 oz Bulleit Bourbon • ½ oz Cynar • ½ oz Velvet Falernum • Dash walnut bitters • Smoking Gun and cedar chips, for smoking Fill a flameproof bowl with cedar chips and set aside. Add the first four ingredients to a cocktail glass, add ice, stir until well chilled and strain into a rocks glass. Turn on the Smoking Gun and put the hose in the filled rocks glass. Use a lighter to get the cedar chips in the bowl burning. Put the suction part of the Smoking Gun near the bowl, filling the glass with smoke. Turn off the gun, remove the hose from the glass and quickly cover with a coaster to retain the smoke. Remove the coaster right when you serve the drink.
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