What’s shakin, cocktail fans? Welcome to Episode 265 of The Modern Bar Cart Podcast!
This time around, we’re joined by author and ethnobotanist Gary Nabhan to explore some of the most important and pressing issues facing agave spirits enthusiasts and mezcaleros.
In this botanically diverse conversation with ethnobotanist and author Gary Nabhan, some of the topics we discuss include:
You can pick up your copy of Agave Spirits: The Past, Present, and Future of Mezcals wherever books are sold, and I’d encourage you to also keep an ear out for some other important and educational texts that Gary mentions during the lightning round.
This episode’s featured cocktail is The Division Bell. To make it, you’ll need:
Combine these ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, give em a good, hard shake, then strain into a stemmed cocktail glass, garnish with a grapefruit twist, and enjoy. Developed by New York Bartender Phil Ward at his bar Mayahuel in 2009, the Division Bell is a Last Word riff that sets this time-honored equal-parts recipe wobbling on its axis.
Sure, you’ve got all the necessary actors: one ounce of booze, some Maraschino liqueur, some lime juice, and even a botanical liqueur in the form of Aperol, but this cocktail comes with a thesis statement: you can’t always sub in different spirits and modifiers in an equal-parts format and end up with a drink that’s equally delicious as the original.
By toning down the most cloying ingredient, the Maraschino liqueur, and tempering the acidity to balance out the combined sugar of the liqueurs, the Division Bell reveals itself as a balanced sipper that seems to bill itself as the Margarita’s edgy, heavily tattooed cousin. And that’s something we can all get behind.
This episode was made possible with editing and sound design by Samantha Reed and Agave insights courtesy of Gary Nabhan. This has been a Modern Bar Cart production, copyright 2023.
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