Price: $13

Ingredients: Plantation Pineapple Rum, Giffard crème de banane, kale, lime

Background: “It’s sort of a daiquiri meets your morning smoothie,” says Naomi Levy, head bartender at Better Sorts Social Club, the former Highball Lounge at Kimpton Nine Zero Hotel that reopened this month with jewel-toned velvet seating, deep green tiles and portraits of dapperly dressed animals. The refreshing sip has a tropical undertone that’s balanced by the bitterness of the leafy green. “When you’re working with some of these savory ingredients in liquid form, you have to think less about necessarily the flavor of eating a raw piece of kale, but about what they bring to the table in terms of their properties—and bitter is good in cocktails.”

Sweet on savory: Levy’s made quite a few trips to Boston Public Market to source ingredients for original takes like a cacio e pepe martini ($16) as well as greens, pears and squashes. The Eastern Standard alum is also incorporating sustainable components such as aquafaba—an egg substitute derived from chickpea water. “I think that the future of cocktails is really culinary,” Levy says. “For so long, bartenders have stuck themselves to this one little circle of taste and flavors. There’s just so much more out there for us to explore.”

Wine, naturally: Levy focuses on small biodynamic and organic producers, highlighting lesser-known grapes like romorantin for chenin blanc drinkers and pineau d’aunis for pinot noir or gamay lovers. Among the long list of bubbly options, go for the half-liter Domaine Glinavos Paleokerisio ($38), a semi-sparkling, semi-dry orange wine from Greece. Says Levy: “It’s unlike anything you’ve ever seen. It’s super low risk and I think high reward.” / Sarah Hagman


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