In honor of Cocktail Week, bartenders around town are offering a special drink all week long, created as an homage to their cocktail mentors. Here's a list of all of the available drinks. Throughout the week, we'll be telling you a little bit more about each one.
[Photo: Locke-Ober/Official Site]
At Emerald Lounge, bar manager Teodora Bakardzhieva, an alum of Locke-Ober, is offering a spin on the Ward Eight for $13, available all week. It's made of 2 ounces Masterson Rye, 0.75 ounce fresh lemon juice, 0.75 ounce chamomile simple syrup, a dash of grenadine, and two orange slices. The orange slices are muddled lightly, and the ingredients are shaken with ice, strained into a cocktail glass, and garnished with a cherry.
"My cocktail is a spin on the Ward Eight and pays tribute to Tom Hussion, who invented the cocktail at Locke-Ober in 1898, and another Tom whose last name I don't recall, who was a resident bartender at Locke-Ober (for a few decades) and taught me how to make the cocktail in 2001," said Bakardzhieva.
"On my first day as a the youngest and first female hired at Locke-Ober, my very first customer shouted, 'Where is Tom and who are you?' Tom was the guy who taught me all the 'old school' cocktails the clientele used to order every night — Brandy Alexander, Daiquiri, Rob Roy, and Gibsons. When I met Tom, he had been working at Locke-Ober for quite awhile and was a legend there, yet he was very humble and willing to share knowledge, techniques, and numerous stories of the old days with me (that is when very few women were allowed to even enter the place back then).
Tom was such a wealth of knowledge and a true mixologist before that word really even existed. He taught me in a few short months what might have taken years to learn somewhere else or without his guidance and mentoring. Cheers to two Toms — Tom Hussion and Tom, my mentor!"
· All coverage of Emerald Lounge on Eater [~EBOS~]
· All coverage of Locke-Ober on Eater [~EBOS~]
· All coverage of Cocktail Week 2013 on Eater [~EBOS~]
