It’s the most cocktailing time of the year! Take a stroll around City Center, Dupont Circle, and Georgetown to see festive lighting and decorations to lift your spirit. Then lift a spirit to toast the holidays at a bar. Chances are good that a lot of thought and effort went into making your beverage perfect for the season’s celebrations.
Ashok Bajaj’s Bibiana Osteria Enoteca (1100 New York Avenue NW) is counting down the days to December 25 with 25 Cocktails of Christmas, featuring Italian liquors for $12 dollars each. I was invited to try a handful of Bibiana’s most notable drinks and I spoke with bartender Sam Ward about his role in creating them.
Beverage director Tin Hayes’ 25 drinks are a huge preparation lift. “Many bartenders have met their match with the 25 cocktails list,” says Ward. He credits the world-class kitchen for sourcing some of the hard to find ingredients, like the blood orange in the Italian 75. “Winter is a hard season to get people to drink gin,” Ward says of his take on the popular summer cocktail. Made with Montelliana prosecco, Gordon’s gin and blood orange juice, the drink brings together citrus and juniper scents associated with decorating the Christmas tree.
For something on the richer side, Ward makes an Acero Sprezzatura (Italian for maple spritz) with Buffalo Trace bourbon, maple syrup, Amaro Nonino, orange bitters, and Lurisia Italian orange soda. “Nonino has citrus bitterness, but it also has licorice flavor,” says Ward, which explains the licorice root stir stick. “It makes it like an orange throat lozenge,” he says.
Ward passes me a dark frothy coup drink called Bibiana Corretto. “Café Coretto in Venice is a combination of espresso and grappa at the end of dinner,” Ward says, “provided you finish the espresso and wash the glass with grappa.” This eye-opening drink makes use of egg white, Chateau De Laubade white Armagnac—or eau de vie—and espresso dust for garnish. It’s wonderfully rich, like caffeinated eggnog.
Perhaps the biggest crowd pleasers are Bibiana’s hot drinks. Vin Brulee mulled wine is from Chef Jake Addeo’s family recipe and garnished with clove, star anise, and pear. The Spicy Hot Chocolate is more than what it sounds. Ward explains that it’s “65 percent high-end dark chocolate, espelette chili flakes, Vecchia Romagna brandy, and a house-made cardamom marshmallow. It’s truly like drinking chocolate.” Finally, the Hot Buttered Rum begins with house-made cider fermented with bread yeast and fortified with Pompero Aniversario dark rum and lots of butter. A singed cinnamon stick gives it the feeling of fireside sipping.
I made a quick stop in at Bar Dupont (1500 New Hampshire Ave NW) just for the Winter Peach. With Leopold’s peach whiskey, Earl Grey tincture, and orange juice, this was a pleasing sipper full of bittersweet flavor. This and the Last Hurrah, with Bulleit rye and rhubarb shrub, and the Black Cat Cloak made with Templeton rye, Amaro Lucano. and mole bitters are only $7 dollars from 3 to 6 p.m.
Founding Farmers (1924 Pennsylvania Avenue NW) has two off-menu holiday cocktails available on request. One is a frothy cider and egg white cocktail for the season—The Cider House Rules. It’s hard cider fortified with Remy Martin and Grand Marnier and sweetened with maple syrup and orange juice. Their Planter’s Punch is also a fitting holiday treat, with rich Appleton rum and Old Fashioned bitters set against a medley of tropical juices.
The ice skating pond outside Founding Farmer’s sister restaurant, Farmers Fishers Bakers, is a great winter destination on the Georgetown waterfront. Take off those skates and warm up by a patio brazier with two hot drinks: the Irish Coffee with Jameson Black, brown sugar syrup, and mint bitters in hot coffee with whipped cream; and the Apple Toddy with JP Wiser rye infused with house spiced apples, black tea and honey.
I like a mulled cider that’s quick and serves one. One that is spiked with Catoctin Creek apple brandy is even better.
• 2 oz. apple brandy
• ground cinnamon and nutmeg
• cinnamon stick
• cup of hot cider
Heat cider to 150 degrees in a saucepan and add a pinch of each spice. Pour apple brandy in a mug and top with cider. Garnish with cinnamon stick.
