By DCist Contributor Nathan Wilkinson
When bartenders are given the challenge of making seasonal cocktails with only out-of-season ingredients, my expectation for their success is pretty low. In most cases, I tend to embrace the egalitarian approach to mixology with the mantra, “do whatever makes you happy.” That said, it is generally a bad idea to design a cocktail to fit a particular season by using liquors simply to achieve an unusual color or flavor. That is why I am in wholehearted agreement with the Washington City Paper’s Jessica Sidman, who asserted that cherry blossom cocktail specials are the worst.
Sidman is correct in saying that restaurants use these gimmicky specials despite the fact that “there’s no good reason to put anything with cherries on their menus.” From the bartender’s perspective, it feels like we’re obligated to make cherry cocktails to placate the thousands of tourists looking to augment their blossom sightseeing experience. And there are plenty of ready go-to’s in the liqueur world that provide a cherry flavor, from Peter Heering black cherry to Luxardo maraschino. The question is whether bartenders achieve what they set out to do—create something that tastes good and evokes the spirit of the season—or a make drink that simply tastes like cherries.
That was the challenge that bartender Tihon Nguyen faced when she created the Tiger Queen for Mango Tree (929 H Street NW). “I’m not a big cherry fan, but I had to design a cherry cocktail,” she said. “I didn’t want to make a traditional pink sake drink,” says Nguyen, who named her drink after the Thai word for cherry blossoms. The cocktail is served chilled and up and includes Stolichnaya vanilla vodka, Disaronno amaretto liqueur, Luxardo and orange zest. The Tiger Queen is a rich dessert drink that will please classic cocktail drinkers. Its flavor is less of cherry and more like a twist on a French Connection, with more almond and orange notes than you’d expect. This one passes the criteria for a good cocktail for any season.
One of the things I enjoy about covering cocktails in the city is the chance to be surprised by the unexpected. I don’t usually enjoy sparkling wine spritzers, but the Scidmore Spritz at District Commons (2200 Washington Circle NW) was the exception. With Leopold’s Michigan Cherry Whiskey, 44 North Magic Wheat Vodka, lemon juice, and sparkling wine, this cherry bomb of a drink was both strong and sweet with a mellow whiskey core that held my interest.
Another worthy cocktail can be found at The Hamilton (600 14th Street NW), where bartender Mark Krieger serves Washington’s Cherry Temple. Leopold Bros.’s Silver Tree vodka and maraschino liqueur give this cocktail the zing of a classic Aviation, but Krieger uses vanilla bean simple syrup and Eden organic tart cherry juice to give it a fresh-pressed cherry flavor. He tells me that he’s a fan of Leopold Bros.’s liqueurs: “they’re super crafty. I hear they use five pounds of fruit per bottle,” he says. It certainly seems as if this is true. The Cherry Temple explodes with sweet and tart cherry flavors like those you only find at roadside farmer’s markets on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
These are all great cocktails despite the fact that they were arbitrarily cherry-themed. Quality ingredients and a simple recipe make for success while others fail. Still, I wanted to try a drink that captured that fragrance of the blossoms you get walking beside the tidal basin when the trees are in bloom. I know that the Japanese cherry trees don’t bear any fruit, and I could care less that the ingredients aren’t locally sourced, as Sidman’s article points out. So I made an infusion of Teaism’s Snow Geisha cherry blossom white tea and gin by washing one tablespoon of tea with a half-cup of Bombay Sapphire East to make Sakura Sakura.
• 1 tsp. Luxardo
• 1 1/2 oz. cherry blossom infused gin
• 1/2 tsp. simple syrup
• 1/2 tsp. grenadine
• 1/2 oz. Cherry Heering
• sparkling water
• cherry blossom garnish
Build the drink in a highball glass coated in Luxardo. Add ice, infused gin and simple syrup. Top with sparkling water and stir. Float grenadine and Heering and garnish with blossoms you didn’t pick from any national park.
