cheers
IT’S A SNAP!
Nellie Cashman’s reimagines the historic Claret Snap BY ALISON BAILIN BATZ PHOTO COURTESY OF WESTIN KIERLAND
F
RESORT & SPA
rom Wyatt Earp to Billy the Kid, the Old West is littered with colorful male characters. But one notable female is Nellie Cashman. “Nicknamed the ‘The Angel of the Mining Camp,’ Nellie was a nurse, boarding house owner and even restaurateur in Arizona in the 1880s,” says Matt Allen, beverage specialist at the Westin Kierland Resort & Spa. “Nellie Cashman’s pays homage to her and Arizona’s Old West.” The food is an elevated version of Old West favorites, including an impressive selection of prime cuts of beef from select ranches across Arizona. “For the cocktail menu, we took actual recipes popular in the late 1800s and reinterpreted them for a 21st-century audience,” Allen says. “Enter the Claret Snap.” According to Allen, whiskey- and bourbon-based cocktails really took hold of the American palate in the 1880s, thanks to the whiskey sour. The Claret Snap ($12) is a variation of this cocktail using a surprisingly popular ingredient from the Old West – red wine! “Claret is actually a blanket term used in the Old West for any type of red wine,” Allen says. “A float of red wine was often used to make whiskey sours, ironically, a little less sour.” Allen’s Claret Snap stays mostly true to the original recipe, which uses a whiskey, fresh lemon, homemade simple syrup and a red wine float on top. He does, however, substitute the generic whiskey with Copper City Bourbon from AZ Distilling Company to give it a little more Arizona flavor, quite literally. Nellie Cashman’s, 6902 E. Greenway Pkwy., Scottsdale; 480.624.1202; www.kierlandresort.com.
SO SCOTTSDALE! |
SS_76_79Cuisine_Cheers_Jun16.indd 78
78
| JUNE 2016
5/25/16 2:54 PM