Price: $12

Inventor: Bar manager Alex Homans, also known as Fairsted Kitchen’s “beverage shaman”

Ingredients: Smoked corn-infused Privateer Silver Rum, Cocchi Americano, Meletti Amaro, lime juice, salt

Food for Thought: Homans has worked as a professional chef, so he often uses dishes as a starting point for drinks. “Our society has been very interested in pairing wine and food, but…being able to have a cocktail balance out a food you’re eating is, I think, as important as anything else,” he says. Fairsted’s lobster and corn beignet dish inspired him to complement the rum’s butterscotch notes with the smoked corn, because, as he points out, “Butter and corn are best friends.”

Balancing Act: “The build of the cocktail is pretty easygoing. It’s not overly sweet, it’s not overly tart, it’s not bitter.” Homans aims for balanced flavors in any drink he puts on the menu, but he also likes to incorporate both familiar and unfamiliar ingredients. You may order a drink because it has something you recognize, but hopefully it exposes you to something new as well.

At Your Service: Homans says it bothers him when a bartender walks off after serving a beverage. “One of the best parts is seeing their first reaction,” he says. If that reaction is not the best—corn isn’t for everyone—that’s OK: “I’m actively interested in you having a good time here.”

Philosophy: “Be nice to people, have fun, work hard. You can teach people how to make drinks; you can’t teach people how to be nice or how to have fun or how to work hard.”

Fairsted Kitchen 1704 Beacon St., Brookline (617-396-8752) fairstedkitchen.com