Diedre Hayes is the bar manager and bartender-extraordinaire at The Oak Room, in the Intercontinental Hotel south of the Plaza. One hot, humid night, I asked her about her favorite drink. She calls it The Bulliet Swizzle.
I came up with the Bulliet Swizzle last summer. The vodka tonics, vodka sodas -- all the flavored vodkas get old and tired and I wanted to make a great refreshing summer drink. I also love classic cocktails, especially a good Old Fashioned, and I wanted a cocktail that tasted like it could be a classic but was unique. So I was experimenting one evening and just made a few. The cocktail waitress liked it so much she started selling them to all her customers.
It’s made with a great small-batch bourbon called Bulliet, hence the name. I feel most cocktails are too fruity and there’s too much Chambord and pink things. I just wanted a good bourbon drink that still acts like a bourbon. The mixture is so you can taste the bourbon -- it's just a little bit extra. Bourbons can be overpowering but Bulliet is a very mixable bourbon. It's lesser known but not at all lesser quality.
It's also very easy to make.
To make it, I create my own simple syrup in the glass. I start with the lime juice and then just mash a sugar cube in with it. My secret ingredient in most of the cocktails is the lime juice. It’s called Nellie and Joe's. It's actually better than a freshly squeezed lime. It’s because they use key limes. It makes the cocktail seem really fresh. You can get it at the Brookside Market. Once I have the sugar cube and lime juice mixed together I add the rocks, a dash of bitters and then the bourbon itself. Simple and it lets the bourbon flavors came through.
A good bourbon drink gets customers excited and talking about it. It used to be making conversation was just as much a part of the job as the drinks themselves, but now days most men at the bar are entertained by their BlackBerries. I don’t have to babysit as much as I used to. The Bulliet Swizzle is not meant to be drunk in a bar though. It's meant to be drunk on a porch in the middle of summer.
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