‹‹ ALIBI V.28 NO.28 • JULY 11-17, 2019
By Dan Pennington (excerpt)
What is a craft cocktail? In the modern era, we’ve learned to treasure specialty drinks for certain qualities. The freshness and quality of the ingredients. The skill and preparation that goes into crafting them. The unique alcohols and flavors found and combined to create something out of this world.
The rise of the craft cocktail scene comes after decades of alcohol companies putting in the least amount of effort possible for mixed drinks, powered by a movement supporting simplicity, giving us the rum and coke, the vodka tonic and the whiskey ginger. These two-step drinks were an effort to cover up the taste of the alcohol in favor of a sweet additive to mask the low-quality burn persistent in cheap booze.
The secret of Founders Bar is out, if you read our review back in March. But if you didn’t, the short of it is this: It’s a mixology haven in the style of a speakeasy and underneath El Rey Liquors. This drink is made with clarified and herbed milk, yellow watermelon, Wheeler’s gin, Lillet and house-made lavender bitters, topped with a Luxardo cherry.