The State Room and Shands General win competition with chips and salsa cocktail
There may have been a lot of pineapple mezcal going around, but tensions were still high Tuesday night when the winners of the latest Long Island cocktail competition were announced. Bartenders from 10 local spots were lined up around the edges of a packed and rowdy room at Coastal Kitchen and Daiquiri Bar in Bay Shore.
For the past three hours, these members of the Long Island Bartenders League had been mixing up the unique cocktails they'd prepared using liquors from Matchbook Distilling Co. in Greenport. The North Fork distillery specializes in experimental spirits made from ingredients like sunchokes, pineapples and strawberries. Its products are difficult to categorize, and draw inspiration from multiple styles like gin, mezcal and eau de vie fruit brandy. Which meant that these cocktails could only be even more creative and wild.
One entry, from Spotlight at the Paramount in Huntington, was a shimmering purple drink made with butterfly pea flower tea that had been infused with Late Embers liquor, which is a mezcal-like spirit made from roasting sunchokes instead of agave. Each sample was topped with cracked pepper, which balanced the sweet honey syrup. A personal favorite of the evening was from the previous champion Sweet Jane cocktail bar in Bay Shore, which prepared a drink with the Ritual Sister smoked pineapple spirit. They were also working with tea, preparing an aromatic blend of oolong and tropical fruits which was then clarified with whey to create a creamy mouthfeel. The drink was topped with a foamy "pineapple five spice" air.
But the people had spoken. Bartenders from The State Room and sister concept Shands General in Patchogue managed to dethrone Sweet Jane.
Their cocktail, Maize Runner, won both the people's vote and the official judges' tally. Second place was awarded to Standard Rec in Patchogue for its tiki-esque Practical Magic cocktail mixed with the roasted pineapple Ritual Sister. And third place went to the event's host, Coastal Kitchen, which prepared a light Japanese influenced cocktail called Fade Into You, also with the Ritual Sister spirit.
The crowd rumbled and people were so excited, they started shoving. Bartenders Thomas Smith and Francis Tittmann marched up to the front and accepted their title, a large decorative belt that they get to keep at their bar until the next competition, which organizers hope will happen every few months. They also received a one-night stay at the Lin Beach House, a boutique hotel in Greenport also owned by Matchbook Distilling.
Tittmann said that it took about two weeks to dream up and execute their cocktail for this competition. The drink is a riff on chips and salsa from your local Mexican restaurant. They infused the Late Embers sunchoke liquor with charred corn tortillas, and mixed it with a scratch-made charred pineapple juice and a tomatillo simple syrup. The drink was topped with a tortilla chip and salsa verde caviar bubbles.
"Our whole cocktail was very inspired by fire and roasted flavors," Smith said. "We charred our pineapple, we roasted our tortillas, our tomatillos. It felt like it was a match made in heaven."
It was surprising that such an off-the-wall drink managed to win over not only the judges, but also the robust crowd of partyers at the bar. The faded green color masked the fact that this thing had some punch to it. It was heavy on the charred and bitter flavors from the sunchokes, tangy with tomatillos, and seemed to be pretty strong too.
"We had to make a lot of bad versions of this drink in order to get to the point that we're at," Tittmann said. "We had an idea and it was a very weird idea, but when we tried it, it was exactly what we wanted."
Andi Berlin is from Arizona and does not know where she is going. But when she gets there, she’ll find something beautiful and delicious that the world needs to taste.
