Summer cocktails sparkle with savory herbs and tropical tastes

As the days grow sunnier and longer, and farmers markets fill up with locally grown goodness, I’ve gotten that familiar itch to trade the warming, spirituous cocktails of winter for spring’s lighter, brighter flavors.

I’m not alone. Bars across town are rolling out new drink menus replete with fruit-forward offerings, savory herbs and tropical tastes. Some are on the sweet side, others have a bit of a bite courtesy of grapefruit or Campari, and many swap brown spirits for rum, tequila and vodka.

Do these menus reveal any trends? Something akin to the game-changing arrival of fresh juices, artisanal spirits and bitter flavors over the past decade? Not really.

Rather, what strikes me in talking to area bartenders is how deep Kansas City’s bench is. Where once only a handful of bars used classic techniques and recipes as a springboard for creativity, now pros across the metro are turning out well-crafted drinks for eager and increasingly educated guests.

“It’s become a more common thing across the board in Kansas City,” says Ryan Maybee, co-owner of the Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange and Manifesto. “To some extent, that we make really awesome cocktails here is more accepted now.”

That’s not to say there aren’t surprises. Take infusions. Alcohol is an efficient solvent, and bartenders have long tailored all manner of spirits by infusing them with fruit, spices, vegetables and herbs. The basic template is straightforward: combine high-quality spirits and ingredients and macerate in a cool, dark place for as long as it takes to reach the desired intensity.

Potent chilies yield their heat in about 20 minutes, but more subtle flavors can take up to a week to develop. Gadgets like iSi’s nitrogen-charged cream whippers shortcut the process, but it still usually happens out of sight, either behind the bar or in the kitchen.

Not so at the Bristol Seafood Grill in the Power & Light District. Bartenders there are using the porthole, a stunning combination infusion vessel and decanter, to impart fresh flavors right on the bar.

Created in 2011 for the Aviary in Chicago, the original porthole vessels were handcrafted and expensive custom pieces. They were also gorgeous, says Brian Loukmas, Bacardi’s portfolio mixologist for national accounts.

He convinced the porthole’s designer, Martin Kastner of Crucial Detail, to loan Bacardi several for a private event at Aspen’s Food and Wine Classic, but he couldn’t buy any. Then Kastner completed a Kickstarter campaign and figured out how to increase production.

This year, Loukmas was finally able to purchase 10 porthole vessels (you can, too, for $100 each at theportholeinfuser.com).

Bacardi, which also owns Grey Goose vodka, is now partnering with KC-based Houlihan’s Restaurants to test the porthole at its Bristol and Devon Seafood + Steaks chains. The Bristol’s downtown location is the first to give it a try, and Loukmas recently held a training session for its bartenders.

Using the porthole is trickier than you’d think. The frame surrounds two clear glass discs, with finicky O-rings and a center screw holding it all together.

But the Bristol’s bartenders quickly got the hang of it and began layering lemon slices and thyme sprigs into the vessel. They sealed it and then funneled in about 9 ounces of a pre-batched Grey Goose Le Citron vodka, lemon juice, simple syrup and St-Germain elderflower liqueur mixture to make a drink called Can’t Stop Thyme.

Next came a citrus-pear version made with Grey Goose, St-Germain, lemon juice, simple syrup and ginger-pear tea infused with sliced lemon, and then an orange-sage one (Grey Goose, fresh orange and lime juices and house ginger syrup over orange, lime and sage).

Each quickly absorbs the character of its solid ingredients, and the flavor continues to evolve as it sits on the bar. But experiencing a porthole cocktail, which is priced for sharing at $23 each, isn’t just about taste, Loukmas says.

“This is visually going to catch the consumer’s eye,” he says. “When you bring it to the table, other customers are going to want it, too.”

A delicious cocktail is more than pretty, though. Aroma also plays a role, says Andrew Olsen, bar manager at Cleaver & Cork, also in the P&L.

“A lot of people forget that aspect,” Olsen says. “I like to work with smell. I mean, your face is in that glass the whole time.”

He certainly had the chance at a recent benefit for Kansas City’s Wornall/Majors House Museums, a pair of 1850s homes that offer tours and living history events. Olsen was one of four Kansas City U.S. Bartenders’ Guild members to volunteer at the party, and their creations showcased four of the three dozen or so herbs growing in the Wornall House’s replica kitchen garden.

The group used basil to line the glass of a nonalcoholic raspberry smash and made herbal simple syrups with rosemary (for a Collins twist) and mint (for a julep that also replaced bourbon with Samogon, a grape-based, grappa-esque spirit).

Thyme and lavender received a slightly different treatment. Both were muddled into an oleo-saccharum, yet another 19th-century ingredient that was well worth reviving. It combines the essential oils of citrus peel (the oleo) with sugar (the saccharum) to create an intensely fragrant syrup.

For this one, Olsen and his guild cohorts began with grapefruit peel and then upped the ante with herbs to create an herbaceous vodka sour base.

All four cocktails were prepped in advance, a process known as batching. Individual servings were then shaken with or poured over ice, enabling the bartenders to quickly serve the thirsty crowd.

Batching is a smart party strategy under any circumstance. At a high volume bar like that of Woodside Health & Tennis Club in Westwood, which might serve 500 to 1,000 guests on a busy summer day, it’s essential to survival.

“How do you make craft cocktails that can be executed for that many covers? That’s crazy,” says Maybee, who is a consultant for Woodside and created its lineup.

To do it, Maybee added an easy-to-serve punch to the menu, made with Shpilka vodka, oleo-saccharum, peach liqueur, Allspice Dram (a Jamaican allspice-flavored liqueur), lemon juice and Peychaud’s bitters.

“It’s kind of exotic, but it’s still a vodka cocktail,” Maybee says. “The last two years, it’s been our No. 1 seller.”

Two cocktails are on tap: a horsefeather made with J. Rieger & Co. Kansas City Whiskey (which Maybee also has a hand in) and a blood orange margarita. And there’s a summery boilermaker that pairs a shot of Tequila Ocho plata with Stiegl Grapefruit Radler, a grapefruit soda-infused German beer.

There are tropical drinks, too, although they may not be what you’d expect when you first spot the words “daiquiri” and “colada” on the list.

The frozen Oaxaca colada carries smoke from Del Maguey’s Crema de Mezcal, while Campari balances its Coco Lopez-pineapple sweetness. The daiquiri combines rum, lime juice and sugar with coconut water, which provides extra viscosity and body, what Maybee calls “a textural thing.”

Such well-crafted creativity is simply what Kansas City has come to expect, no matter what the season.

“When it comes to the really traditional classics, they’re so ubiquitous and well-known that people call for them anyway,” Maybee says. “If they see a riff on the menu, like the Oaxaca colada, that they can get a regular piña colada is kind of implied.”

This story was originally published May 19, 2015 at 6:17 AM with the headline "Summer cocktails sparkle with savory herbs and tropical tastes."