TOP: Tailor's South Central cocktail; BELOW: Eben Freeman creating a mole tincture.
When Eben Freeman, bartender at cocktail parlor Tailor, sits down to discuss drinks, you’ll suddenly wish you’d paid more attention during lab class.
Freeman, a 20-year veteran of New York’s food and beverage industry, honed his creative vision at gastronomic mad scientist Wylie Dufresne’s WD~50, taking him way beyond “Shaken or stirred?” In fact, he’s really into “liquid nitrogen gelatin clarification” processes right now.
“I think the main point is that molecular mixology, as they’re calling it, has a direct relationship to the kitchen,” explains Freeman. He’s one of the leading figures of the worldwide molecular-mixology scene, a community of highly skilled bartenders and chefs who think about drinking in ways that combine timetested cooking techniques with 21st-century tools. Can “caviar” be made out of Negroni? Can minerality be added to a spirit by introducing shale? Can a marshmallow be composed of gin? Yes. “We now think we can put anything into spirits,” says Freeman.
If all of this sounds a bit too Mr. Wizard, try Tailor’s South Central. It’s not currently on the menu, but Freeman, along with chef and coowner Sam Mason, gave Gotham an exclusive look at how it’s made. (Ask nicely and they’ll make you one, too.)
THE RECIPE
South Central
4 dashes mole tincture
1/2 ounce Marie Brizard white crème de cacao
11/2 ounces Diplomático Reserva rum
11/2 ounces Flor de Caña four-year-old rum
Twist of orange peel (optional)
Combine liquid ingredients in a chilled mixing glass, add ice, and stir for 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist orange peel over drink and drop into glass.
THE MOLECULAR STEPS
1. Chef Mason mixes mole concentrate with rum (which infuses for eight to 10 hours).
2. Don’t try this at home: The mixture is then hit with a blast of liquid nitrogen.
3. Chef Mason strains the frozen remainder and then refrigerates. The result is a mole tincture.
