Another week, another mind blowing cocktail from Grant Achatz and Craig Schoettler, which may potentially end up at Aviary. This time they are showcasing a crystal clear cocktail, which is, true to the title, perfectly clear. It contains Plymouth gin and distilled lemon juice, which is shaken with ice cubes made of distilled sorrel juice. This liquid is then poured into a glass with ice cubes made from distilled strawberry juice. Honestly, we couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried. But what’s perhaps most interesting about this, and the few other videos released by the two, is how captivating they are.
YouTube is littered with guys in speakeasy-era clothes mixing up classic cocktails, and the vast majority are practical, if a little boring. Even great cocktail writers are few and far between. Our favorites (Gary Regan, David Wondrich, Paul Clarke) tend to cover more of the history of a drink than anything else. You know, tales of bigger-than-life bartenders and drunk customers.
With no real history to have to deal with, these videos immediately jump into the creative aspects of the drink. Perhaps its that we don’t have distilling devices, or the ability to make thousands of cucumber encapsulations in our kitchen, but each time we are floored by the result.
So it’s kind of too bad that we heard from Time Out that both Aviary and Next might have to push back their openings from the fall to the winter. That’s all perfectly normal for Chicago, but with these mad 90 degree days in August, we can’t imagine anything better than sucking back on a few of these crystal clear beverages.
Next Best Thing [TOC]
