AQUAVIT!
Caraway-flavored cocktails are having a moment.
Since making its way to the States from Scandinavia, aquavit has expanded its repertoire beyond its most common role as a celebratory shot, to being a starring flavor character in cocktails. Though the “water of life” sometimes carries polarizing ingredients like anise and fennel, bartenders in Los Angeles are wielding aquavit in creative ways to use those savory flavors to their advantage.
The Discarded Lover
For Bartender-Owner Gianna Johns, “[Aquavit] is sort of a secret weapon. I usually land on it towards the end as a solution rather than as a starting point.” When developing the Discarded Lover at Baby Gee, the tart and juicy combination of Matchbook Distilling’s blueberry amaro, blueberry cider, elderflower liqueur, lemon, and sage “needed another layer of complexity.” She had originally tried the cocktail with gin, but wanted to heighten more savory flavors. “There was an ‘AHA!’ moment when we pulled out a bottle of aquavit to use as a split base with white whiskey.” Johns uses Krogstad, a domestic aquavit that puts both caraway and star anise at the forefront, providing deep spice to contrast the fruity and floral flavors. “We actually list caraway as an ingredient rather than aquavit because it's important for us to make the language on the menu as accessible as possible,” she says. “With this approach, guests always have a positive reaction to the inclusion of aquavit because they usually learn about it after they've already decided they like the cocktail.”
The Jellyfish Situation
The Jellyfish Situation came about when Bar Director Danny Rubenstein wanted to challenge himself “to make something I had never seen before” for the menu at Here’s Looking At You. With apples coming into season, he chose tart green apple juice as his fruit component, and wanted to use dragoncello liqueur as a modifier. “A salad I had somewhere had tarragon, apples, and dill, so I was kind of pulling from that memory.” The additional herbal flavor would come from the Ahus aquavit Rubenstein had on the backbar, which he decided to pair with Cognac. “I had never seen Cognac and aquavit together. [Aquavit] is a cool spirit that has unique characteristics, so it's fun and can be challenging to manipulate those flavors.” An ounce of Cognac lays the foundation for the cocktail, and Rubenstein adds equal parts aquavit and tarragon liqueur to showcase the herbs, balanced with the apple juice, plus lemon juice and honey syrup. “It’s undercover boozy but very refreshing, has layers of tartness, and warm flavor profiles.”
Runaway Hog
After trying Ahus’ Midvinter aquavit—a Swedish distillate infused with apple and cinnamon in addition to the traditional fennel and caraway—Bartender Tish Taylor was inspired to make a fizz for the winter menu at Otium. “I usually get inspired by a modifier and work backwards. So in this case, I was looking at aquavit as a modifier rather than a base spirit, and I thought the flavors would play well with the stoney notes of apricot.” With a few private barrels in the cellar, Taylor selected WhistlePig’s 12-year rye to infuse with dried apricots via an iSi canister. She splits the base between the infused whiskey and Michter’s rye “to keep cost down,” and eventually landed on a 3:1 ratio of rye to aquavit. A barspoon of apricot liqueur helps to enhance the fruit flavor, and Taylor otherwise constructs the fizz, named Runaway Hog, classically—with lemon, demerara syrup, egg white, and soda. She adds a final flourish of freshly grated nutmeg to dust the frothy head with additional warm aromatics. “It’s a conversation starter,” she says. “I have a lot of guests ask me what [aquavit] is when they first read it in the description. It gives people the opportunity to try something that they haven't had before in a way that's approachable.”
yacht club
A trip to Denver’s Yacht Club inspired Beverage Director Ramsey Musk to create a cocktail in its honor once he got back to Accomplice Bar. “I love the bar's Hidden Valley Ranch Water. I was drinking it and was like…what if it tasted like dill pickle, and was also a spritz?” To achieve bright and tart pickle flavor, he infuses Ahus aquavit with dill, chives, and parsley to double down on the green flavors in the spirit. “I have been a fan of aquavit for years,” he says. “It is one of those spirits I pull on when I need a little razzle dazzle. It adds a layer of complexity in a subtle way.” Musk batches the infused aquavit with Empirical Soka—a grassy sorghum distillate—along with Suze, bergamot liqueur, verjus, and lemon before diluting it with cucumber juice and clarifying it with buttermilk. To make it a spritz, he recycles flat sparkling wine by force-carbonating it along with the buttermilk punch. The result is a drink that’s “a really fun dance of refreshing and easy-peasy, and savory and decadent,” with plenty of acid, while still letting the herbs shine. “We are really fortunate at Accomplice to have a receptive audience. In the past, sometimes people would ask to swap [aquavit] for a gin, which is kind of funny because they are basically just estranged siblings. More often than not, people trust the process and are pleasantly surprised. It tows that line really beautifully because of the acidity, sparkling effervescence, and herbaceousness.”
