On Friday at 6 p.m., brand-new East Village cocktail bar Booker & Dax opened its doors on 13th Street to a packed house of industry insiders, science geeks and downtown scenesters thirsty for a taste of high-tech drinks made with gadgetry more common in a chemistry lab than a bar.
Cornell hospitality student Jackson Kalb, 21, was perched at a table, sipping a $14 Friend of the Devil — a mixture of rye, Campari, sweet vermouth, Pernod and bitters. The mad-scientist twist? It had been stabbed with a 1,500-degree, red-hot poker to caramelize the sugar in the booze.
“As soon as they put it in front of you, you can smell it — the spices, everything,” Kalb enthuses.
Dave Arnold, director of culinary technology at the French Culinary Institute, is the visionary behind the bar. His life’s mission: to analyze every technique — both in the kitchen and out — in pursuit of a better outcome.
“I think you benefit from better everything, right?” says Arnold, as he watches horseradish distill into an essential oil, which results in a pure, sinus-cleansing taste of what’s usually a murky, chewy condiment. That’s just one altered ingredient for Booker & Dax’s own Bloody Mary — the Lady of the Night.
The distillation process takes about 45 minutes, and — like many of the sophisticated preparations at Booker & Dax — is finished hours, sometimes days, before nightly service begins.
Late last year, after partnering with chef-restaurateur David Chang to build kitchen equipment for professional and home cooks, Arnold’s longtime dream of making better cocktails for everyone became a reality.
That’s when Chang agreed to let Arnold take over what had been Momofuku Ssam Bar’s spillover space — an annex bar with its own entrance on East 13th Street (just around the corner from 207 Second Ave., the bar’s official address). There, a photo of Arnold fighting fire already hung on the wall.
From his front-row bar stool, Brad Thomas Parsons, the 43-year-old author of the cocktail book “Bitters,” delivers his verdict on Arnold’s $14 ‘N’ Cider, another red-hot poker drink made from Laird’s applejack, cider, a cinnamon stick and bitters.
“There’s a reason for the red-hot poker. It’s not just for show,” he declares.
“It makes a better cocktail.”
Friend of the devil
This hot twist on the classic
Boulevardier cocktail uses the flashiest technique of all — a red-hot poker heated to 1,500 degrees. Bartender Claire Needham says her first lesson with the formidable fire-breathing tool involved Arnold reassuring her that he had “minimized the risk of explosion.”
* Rye, Campari, sweet vermouth, Pernod and bitters are mixed in a pint glass.
* A poker is plunged into the drink and stirred, caramelizing the sugar in the alcohol to enhance flavor.
* The steaming drink is poured into a ceramic coffee cup and garnished with a generous orange twist.
Lady of the night
“Everyone has had a Bloody Mary,” says bar manager Tristan Willey. “But not like this. Your palate looks for thickness, but this is a cocktail you can sip.” Made with tequila, the Lady of the Night is actually a riff on the variant known as the Bloody Maria.
* Horseradish is distilled into an essential oil using a rotary evaporator.
* Tomato juice is spun through a centrifuge to clarify it, transforming it from cloudy to clear.
* Ditto for Sriracha and Worcestershire sauce.
* Liquid nitrogen, stored in a vented, vacuum-insulated coffee dispenser, is poured into a glass and swirled, emitting a puff of steam illuminating the plunge in temperature. The excess — a fleeting cloud — is shaken off.
* Reposado tequila, horseradish distillate and the clarified ingredients are blended in a cocktail shaker, then poured into the chilled glass.