For spring this year, rhubarb is the new elderflower, which was the new green apple last year, says Eben Klemm, director of cocktail development for BR Guest, a restaurant group in New York. Klemm should know. He is one of the few people in the world paid to create specialty drinks. Green apple, as a puree in fruit martinis, is so 2003.
People who go out are more interested than ever in drinking cocktails, and in an evolving effort to keep them interested, bars, lounges and restaurants are now introducing yearly seasonal collections, as the fashion industry does.
The spring collections are appearing in the next few weeks. Gone like a closet sweep will be the brown ciders, spices and citruses of winter (for 2004 to 2005 kumquat was the new blood orange which was the new pomegranate) to make way in the liquor cabinet for the sorrel greens and rhubarb pinks of this spring. Look for cocktails that will be brighter or lighter in color, less alcoholic and more casual and appropriate to outdoor drinking. The grasshopper, a pastel "lady's cocktail" popular in the 1950s, is back, lined up last week on the bar at New York's Lever House Restaurant like Kate Spade handbags.
Accents for spring include hibiscus, lavender and thyme, what one cocktail couturier described as a collective industry consciousness to go "beyond mint." Anyone hitting a bar in the next month is more likely to feel like a daisy picker than a heavy drinker.
"People come out in the spring," said Jimmy Bradley, a chef and owner with Danny Abrams of Pace, Mermaid Inn, the Harrison and the Red Cat. "Think of it like buds on trees. You need new offerings because newness is in the air. The day gets a little longer, a little warmer. You show a new look for your cocktails."
At Pace that will mean the Aperol Sprizz, a cocktail with club soda and prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine, which is as refreshing to see and as animated as a spring rivulet. Bradley said that classic Gibsons show nicely too in April because of the availability of young onions, which garnish them.
"Spring is about excitement, longing, anticipation, all part of having your first drink at the end of the day," said Dan Barber, a chef and owner of Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York, a restaurant with a farm that produces much of the food on its menu. For spring there are pickled ramp martinis, a sorrel margarita, and rhubarb as a cosmopolitan. The squash juice drinks are now out of the picture.
"People drink more in the spring," Barber said. "It's a direct reflection of people's mood. It's more festive. They arrive, and they want to try something new, sit on the terrace and sip something bright green." Describing his restaurant and lounge as contemporary, Barber added that his clientele expected specialty drinks, as well as the food, to be seasonal, as part of the fashionable modernity of the menu.
"It increases the energy at the bar," he said, as a diplomatic way of explaining that a vigorous cocktail program helps draw younger people to Blue Hill at Stone Barns.
Stylish drinkers now suffer their own peculiar version of seasonal affect disorder. Rainlove Lampariello, who creates cocktails for Lure Fishbar and Lever House Restaurant, reported depression and tantrums at one bar because blood orange cosmos had disappeared with the short days, darkness and snow.
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