Talkin' Cocktails: The Waysider

Alt-Julep: The Waysider

As promised, I'm introducing you to this refreshing cocktail, which I came across at the charming and laid-back Louisville restaurant Decca. It's on East Market Street, in a neighborhood that in recent years has seen the arrival of a clutch of restaurants, art galleries, and antique shops, including the Mayan place across the street that my savvy barkeep Krista says is also very good.

The drink pays tribute to the Wayside Christian Mission, formerly housed on the site. Bourbon-based cocktails are a dime of dozen, but the trick is to find those that are balanced and not too sweet. The Waysider's combination of bourbon, lime juice, simple syrup, ginger beer and mint give it a bracing herbal and slightly musky flavor.

Decca uses Old Fitzgerald 100 proof "Bottled in Bond"bourbon because, explains Krista, "The spicier, high-proof whiskey is a nice complement to the ginger beer and helps balance out some of the sweetness of the drink." She says Old Forester Signature, another hundred-proofer, would make an acceptable substitute. (If you're interested in the history and complicated modern ownership status of Louisville distilleries, here's an interesting post.) I found Fever Tree ginger beer at my neighborhood Fairway.

The ice doesn't have to be crushed, but Krista recommends"definitely a smaller, more meltable ice cube like hotel ice (or as we call it in bartender circles, 'cheater ice'). This," she explains, "is for the refreshment factor. You want your ice to melt a little and dilute the drink just a touch."

Here's to the refreshment factor!


The Waysider

In a highball glass, stir together, without crushing mint leaves:

1 sprig mint, leaves only
1 oz. lime juice
1/2 oz. simple syrup (2:1 ratio of sugar to water)
2 oz. bourbon

Fill glass with crushed ice or smallish cubes

Top with Fever Tree ginger beer, about 1 ounce (give bottle a shake before opening)

A Quick Trip to Louisville, Kentucky

I'm just back from a foray into bluegrass country. Louisville is a compact and genteel city, where the faded glory of its nineteenth-century homes and buildings bumps up against a percolating farm-to-table and innovative drinks scene. It's hard not to like a city where life seems to revolve around horses, college sports, bluegrass music, food, and drink, a city whose most famous sons (broadly speaking) are Muhammad Ali and the Louisville Slugger.

The $82 million, six-story Muhammad Ali Center could have ended up the ego-driven deification of a great, still-living athlete. It does do its share of deifying, but focuses equally on Ali's humanitarian acts and moral courage, as well as his vision for international peace. I loved this installation by Korean artist Ik-Joon Kang, part of a larger series of 3" x 3" drawings that he has collected from over 135,000 children around the world. The drawings express their makers' hopes and dreams, so from far off you can see that the images spell the words "Hopes & Dreams." From close up, you can examine each child's individual visual message.

Ik-Joon Kang's "Hopes and Dreams." 

"Hopes and Dreams" from close up.

Dining in Louisville brought back memories of eating in Atlanta, Richmond and New Orleans, where the deep, sweet, sour and smoky flavors of barbecue and collard greens seem to inform those region's cooking as a whole. In Louisville, good baking and desserts abound as well; the biscuits, bread puddings and cobblers put northern attempts at the forms to shame.

Biscuits at the old-line Oakroom at the Seelbach Hilton Hotel.

Knowing how to get the best out of pork products is part of the Southern genetic heritage, as Decca chef Annie Pettry's super hay-braised pork cheeks with wheat berries, rutabaga, pistachios and apricot  demonstrated. Born in North Carolina, Pettry has cooked in kitchens in San Francisco and New York as well.

Hay-braised pork cheeks at Decca.

At chef Edward Lee's 610 Magnolia, the Brooklyn-raised Korean American chef mixes southern flavors with Asian accents (his king crab with coconut-banana, mango, red pepper and daikon sprouts is one example). When Lee arrived in Louisville eight years ago he began playing with forgotten and/or local products. He was so taken with the region's network of small farms and their handling and processing of livestock that he ended up staying. "Why would you use French honey when you have sorghum in the backyard, or spend money on osetra when a mile-and-a-half away you've got spoonbill (native paddlefish) caviar?" he asks.

Bourbon, of course, is Kentucky's spirit of choice, and we came back with our share of the mind- boggling array on sale in any liquor store. I'll share a dynamite bourbon-based cocktail I tried at Decca in my next post.