Well Fed Network

Posted by Ken Walczak on The Spirit World.

The first time I met Rob Thomas of the band Matchbox Twenty, I wanted to punch him in the face. I was not yet 20 at the time, which means he was something like 26 or 27. That second single was all over both of the town’s two megawatt alterna-rock stations, and I just didn’t think it was any good … but there I was at the old Grog Shop, 3 hours early for the triple bill, because I liked Cool For August well enough to watch them sound check, and anyway, what else are you gonna do? On a Saturday. In Cleveland. In 1997. Hell, I was probably hoping for some excitement to rival the last weekend, when AOL had sent me the CD that came with 40 free hours …

So me and Rob, we’re sitting on top of this ancient, abused, tarp-covered pool table, the only seats in front of the old Grog stage, and he’s telling me about Orlando, and his super-awesome band, and his big stupid rockstar plans for the future. And I’m nodding along, like a sullen teenager who thinks he looks half-courteous but doesn’t, smirking to myself about how much I hate this guy. Where does he get off, being all popular, and all good-at-writing-songs-that-people-like, and all friendly to me for no goddamn reason? What an asshole, right? (Whereas Cool for August: real musical pioneers. You could tell, because they didn’t sell any records.)

Ten years later, I’m not sure I’ve gotten any better at first impressions. I am, however, a serious and unrepentant Matchbox Twenty fan (Did you see my boy Rob on Bill Maher last week? He was awesome!), and a man whom experience has taught not to assume that commerce is always the natural enemy of art.

Duggan McDonnell, proprietor of Cantina, agrees. “I’m very much capitalist-oriented,” he says when I inquire about the genesis of his self-styled “Latin Art Bar” on Sutter Street. Cantina stocks a lot of top-shelf tequilas, he tells me, because that sector of the beverage industry is showing the most growth right now. His concept for marketing the bar experience centers on the notion of a “third place.” Mr. McDonnell is surprised, but not unhappy, to learn that the Sony Playstation has already latched on to these very buzzwords.

McDonnell is being more literal than Sony (which enlisted weirdness connoisseur David Lynch to turn the slogan into a series of trippy Euro-TV ads). Cantina, he says, is really an attempt to create a place, besides work or home, where one “can go to be [your]self, to be comfortable.” When you order a drink in this third place, McDonnell predicts: “I’m gonna put something in your mouth that makes you happy.” A substantial portion of Cantina’s menu consists of Latin-inspired and “community-oriented” pitchers: punches, caipirinhas, and “five-spice” margaritas.

On my own visits to Cantina, happiness has taken a more specific and solitary form: the Carmen Amaya, a rye whiskey beauty fashioned by Jordan Mackay for entry into a cocktail competition featuring sherry. This proposition was, says Mr. Mackay, “not as easy as you would think.” Jordan is behind the stick at Cantina as part of a long and prestigious tradition of writers (culinary, beverage, or otherwise) who seek “real world” experience to hone their creative craft. (Mr. Thomas, by contrast, wishes said real world “would just stop hassling [him].” But really, who can blame him?)

Mr. Mackay has written about his experience creating the Carmen Amaya at some length, and I won’t try to improve on that. I will note that the drink itself is a multifaceted wonder, a rival to even the most inspired and enticing creations I’ve encountered in the City. The rye holds hands with its old pal Cointreau, and goes skipping across your tongue as in a Frisco, or even the early stages of an Algonquin. The amontillado, meanwhile, lurks around the corner, a diversion not so much bracing (like the Frisco’s herbaceous Bénédictine) as rounded, and enticingly smoky. Remarkably, the fresh basil enhances the whole experience, stinging your nose first and the tip of your tongue last, and adding a sweet floral undertone to all the flavors in between. Neither bitter nor jarring, the Carmen Amaya wouldn’t bookend a perfect night’s tippling, but it’s complex, intelligent, and damned satisfying during those long, dreary mid-evening hours.

Sipping my Carmen Amaya on a reasonably uncrowded Thursday, I wondered if Cantina’s decorators felt particularly satisfied while away at university, or even at a slightly tropical boarding school. (Do they have boarding schools in the tropics? Besides on midseason replacements from the CW, I mean?) The view from the bar is wholly professorial, with classics of the drinks-book genre peeking out from between votive candles and sought-after treasures from historical mixology. I’ll list a few of the latter for the hardcore nerds: Pimm’s Nos. 2 through 4, Amer Picon, rare Piscos. Lots of rare Piscos.

I finished the cocktail, accepted a taste of a delightful Peruvian Pisco from Duggan, and began assembling a shaky metaphor concerning the advanced state of the craft on display: If Cantina’s festive punches are the core requirements (the “freshman mixers,” maybe?), then the straight-up classics are its more rigorous 200-level lecture courses, and the ingenious “culinary cocktails” would be junior and senior seminars. Which makes the complex and richly rewarding Carmen Amaya: what, a Master’s thesis?

Eh, screw it, I decided. The world has enough corny, half-apt comparisons already. I gave Duggan a friendly handshake, promised to see him again soon, and made my way back home, to order my copy of Exile on Mainstream.

—

Carmen Amaya
adapted from Cantina

6 leaves fresh basil
1 1/2 ounces Old Overholt rye
3/4 ounce amontillado sherry
1/2 ounce Cointreau
1 ounce lemon juice (1/2 to 1 lemon, depending on size, hand-squeezed)
2 dashes orange bitters
Simple syrup* to taste

Muddle the basil leaves — Duggan suggests Seattle style. Add the other ingredients. Shake and serve up. No garnish: the basil bits and ice shards should dance enticingly in the liquid.

Put something in your mouth that makes you happy.

* = Cantina uses a less-than-simple mix of turbinado sugar, white sugar, and a dash of cinnamon.