Worth a Shot

TECHNIQUE

Jun 2

Bar Manager Patrick Halloran reshapes classic cocktails into slurpable shooters at Henrietta Red in Nashville.

Jello shots aren’t just for house parties and dive bars. At Henrietta Red, Beverage Director Patrick Halloran offers a rotating selection of the slurpable shooters. The project was initiated by a previous general manager who wanted to put jello shots on the menu as an irreverent contrast to Halloran’s refined cocktails and Chefs Julia Sullivan and Pamela Stevenson’s sophisticated vegetable and seafood-forward dishes. So, Halloran dove into developing a solidified shot that was “a little more high-brow” to showcase technique in an approachable way. And at $5 a pop, the shots are a fraction of the price of a standard cocktail. “It’s a distinct and fun thing that subverts expectations” says Halloran.

Patrick Halloran of henrietta red | Photos: Will BLunt

Although Jell-O is known for its simple just-add-water instructions, for Halloran, it wasn’t so easy. He wanted to accurately replicate the flavors of classic cocktails in semi-solid, miniature form while also maintaining the same percentage of alcohol by volume found in a standard pour. The process ended up taking two months of trial and error. “[I] spent more time getting the jello the way I liked it than on the entire opening menu,” he says. “You want it to be a little jiggly but still be elastic.” Since alcohol doesn’t allow gelatin to set like it would in other liquids, a powdered gelatin needed to be incorporated into water and cooked down before any spirits were mixed in. This meant that Halloran would need to calculate the ideal amount of water for each cocktail in order to accurately replicate the dilution in the final product. A formula from Dave Arnold’s Liquid Intelligence helped him do the math, which he eventually plugged into a Google spreadsheet to streamline recipe development.

He enters the ABV of each ingredient and the goal ABV of the finished cocktail to calculate the spirit, modifier, and water amounts needed for each 1-ounce shot.

Halloran changes up the flavors weekly to keep guests coming back for more—he’s now replicated around 100 different cocktails in gel form since the restaurant's 2017 opening, from negroni and sherry cobbler to espresso martini (which sold out in 16 minutes). Served on a plate, the “shots” are set in oval pastry molds and end up looking more like elegant petit fours than boozy bites, with garnishes like citrus segments and Maldon salt. There are jello shots like the Hemingway daiquiri, which has all the usual suspects in a bite-sized form: Jamaican rum, grapefruit, maraschino, and lime juice. Then there’s the El Diablo, which replicates its classic cocktail counterpart by incorporating fresh ginger, crème de cassis, black currants, and lime, with a flavorless popping candy topping to mimic carbonation. “People will email to request flavors,” Halloran says. “They definitely stand out and are a little goofy; they have become the most distinctive element of our bar program.” So much so that even the neighborhood mail courier stops in regularly for a jiggly pick-me-up, and to that, we say, cheers!