The closer I look, the more obvious it becomes: Herbs are a part of almost every cocktail. Whether it's the oregano, chamomile, marjoram, sage, or summer savory you might find among the infusions in sweet or dry vermouth (hello, Manhattan- and Martini-lovers); Green Chartreuse's 130 different plant ingredients, whose names you'll never know unless you're a Very Important Monk (sending kisses to the Bijou sippers out there); the hyssop or angelica often used in absinthe; or that touch of lavender in some gins, the flavor in your favorite tipple probably has its roots in one herb or another. And that's why, if you want to take your cocktail party in a new direction, you need to get your hands in the dirt. There's no easier or more impressive way to punch up a Bloody Mary than to add a sprig or two of a plant you nurtured from infancy. The best food and drink is made with love, and growing your own ingredients—because you have to get dirty to do it, because the outcome is never certain, and because so much depends on timing and chemistry—is truly a labor of love.
I can't prove it, but it seems like every herb is a weed somewhere. In my travels I've seen rosemary the size of hedges in New Zealand, Italy, and the American West. Epazote, a staple in Mexican black beans, grows wild—and wildly—just about anywhere. And if you drop a piece of mint by a creek and come back in a year, both banks are likely to be covered in the fragrant greenery. Disappointment with supermarket mint (which often smells like cat pee to me) is what led to my first excursion into gardening for my home bar. A particularly sweet and pungent sprig in a Gin-Gin Mule at Pegu Club, in New York City, inspired me to ask cofounder Audrey Saunders for a few pieces to root. After a few weeks in a glass of water they'd sprouted a tangle of tendrils, so I stuck the little guys in the dirt alongside a seasonal streambed near my weekend retreat in the mid-Hudson Valley and was rewarded with a summer-long orgy of glorious mint-accented cocktails.
Leafy Inspiration
A few years ago, Adam Seger, the Chicago-based bartender behind the recently released Hum Botanical Liqueur, began growing five kinds of mint in his Mojito garden at Nacional 27. He's now working on a book called The Farm Bar: 40 Cocktails From the Garden to the Glass. I look forward to perusing Seger's tome, but in the meantime I will continue to drool over the book that always sends me running out to the garden and then back to the seed catalog. Scott Beattie's Artisanal Cocktails has recipes that include fennel fronds, hyssop, parsley, shiso, cilantro, amaranth, lemongrass, lots of mint, and various types of basil. Beattie's drinks aren't easy, but works of art rarely are. His culinary approach to drinks includes a slightly radical twist: Rather than muddling the leaves, he prefers to slice them into thin strips. Small-leafed herbs like tarragon and cilantro defy chiffonading, so he does muddle those, but he suggests "a few firm taps" rather than the aggressive mashing one often sees from bartenders.
Tarragon is one of my favorite small-leafed herbs, but I've had no success using it in cocktails. In 2008, while working on a story on the delicious Italian aperitif chinato, I went way, way wrong with the licorice-scented leaves in a sweet Martini variant. (The flavors didn't come together at all, resulting in a bizarre series of tastes plodding across my tongue.) I turned to my dear friend Alberta Straub (a.k.a. Miss Flighty), California-based mixologist extraordinaire and a member of the consulting Chefs' Council at San Francisco's Center for Culinary Development. She suggested we try thyme instead, and bingo! we were back on track. Bryan Dayton, the owner and beverage director of Oak at Fourteenth, in Boulder, Colorado, has created a masterpiece with tarragon, however. He infuses vodka with it and mixes the infusion with cucumber, lime, lavender, and Green Chartreuse for the aptly named Monk's Garden. Infusions are delicate affairs, and there is a tendency to let them go too long. You can infuse spirits with just about anything (herbs, fruit, vegetables, even cured meat), in an endless number of combinations, but make sure you monitor the progress by tasting it daily. It doesn't take much to transform vodka from a relatively flavorless spirit into an unpleasant herbaceous mess.
Speaking of messes, a digression and confession: I don't like weeds in my teeth. In other words, when it comes to herbal cocktails, I prefer those that are strained, so the leaves are not swimming right there in my glass. Miss Flighty teases me relentlessly about this, but she is the Queen of Green and I am, admittedly, more of a Prince of Pristine. I like my Mint Juleps made with mint simple syrup (the flavor is more delicate if you let the sugar syrup cool a bit before adding the mint), and I prefer my Roquette fine-strained to eliminate the arugula bits. Feel free to rib me about this. I'm used to it. "I'll never apologize for leaving the herbs in my cocktails," says Straub. "I think they have more flavor that way, and they're so great visually. I do object to the gratuitous herb-adding I see sometimes from bartenders who want to make something seem new or different, but when it's done well there's nothing better."
One of my favorite ways to add visual appeal to a cocktail or punch is to embed herbs or edible flowers in ice cubes. It's a bit easier if you can make oversize cubes or spheres, but I've frozen thyme flowers in regular-size cubes and they were a big hit (most recently I used thyme ice in a gin and tonic to which I added a splash of thyme–lemon verbena simple syrup). To keep the leaf or flower from floating to the top and poking out of the cube, I fill the tray only halfway with water and when that's frozen, I fill the tray the rest of the way. It takes a little planning, but we taste with our eyes as well as our mouths, so the payoff is well worth it.
The Best Herbs to Plant
Early success is crucial to the sustainability of any endeavor, so I would suggest starting with the two heartiest herbs I know, mint and basil. By mint I mean spearmint (a good all-around variety to look for is the relatively mild Kentucky Colonel, but if you have the space try a few different ones). Be warned, it will try to take over, so you might want to find a way to keep it contained. (Or let it go nuts and be grateful for the aromatic bounty.) A large pot can work, but mint likes to run, so a raised bed is better. If a pot is your only option, try to find a sunny spot outside—mint likes heat, which somehow makes sense given its cooling qualities. It's also a good idea to divide the plant when it starts to get spindly. Before you know it you'll have more mint than you can use. But try. Juleps, Mojitos, Audrey Saunders' Gin-Gin Mule, Dale DeGroff's Whiskey Smash—all these cocktails and many more will reward you many times over.
Basil is a member of the mint family, and it's another great plant for the home-bar garden. Sweet basil is the variety most people are familiar with, but there are a number of others worth considering, particularly Thai basil, which is smaller-leafed, tastes somewhat anisey, and works well with a variety of spirits. It's most commonly seen in the Basil Mojito, which may hold the cocktailian record for fastest transformation from cool to cliché. In the mid '90s, as cocktail culture was being reborn, every creative bartender seemed to have a basil phase. Most quickly moved on to more exotic herbs, or at least more interesting types of basil. Scott Beattie uses opal basil and sweet Italian basil in the Upstairs Neighbor, a beautiful and complex take on a Bloody Mary that also has a splash of aged balsamic vinegar. Basil feels right in a drink that resembles a salad more than a beverage, but it also works well combined with its mint cousin (such as in a Mojito). One of my favorite Beattie drinks, the Thai Boxer, is made with Thai basil and mint along with cilantro, rum, lime juice, coconut milk, and ginger beer. It's a perfect reflection of his culinary approach to mixing drinks.
Intriguingly, there are a number of cocktails that use basil in tandem with fruit—not an immediately obvious match to my palate, but strawberry and basil can be found mixed with vodka, gin, white rum, tequila, and even bourbon. I'll admit to eagerly welcoming peach season so I can play with a recipe Mark Miller (of Coyote Cafe fame) published in Cool Coyote Cafe Juice Drinks that includes orange juice, Thai basil, fresh peach, and club soda. I'm going to try it with each of the major spirits and see what works best. I have a feeling bourbon might be the winner.
Adding fresh herbs to cocktails is by no means a new phenomenon, by the way. For example, the Herbal Bloody Mary, published in the July 1960 issue of Gourmet, included marjoram, basil, and savory—though it's the MSG that really sets the drink apart. Because marjoram is often an ingredient in vermouth, I'm intrigued by the idea of punching up that aspect of the aperitif wine by infusing it with a few sprigs of the piney plant and trying it in a Martini. (I'll probably pass on the MSG, though.)
Needless to say we've barely scratched the aromatic surface of what can be done with herbs. Unless you live in an extreme climate or don't have a sunny window in which to grow herbs, you can probably cultivate any of the plants mentioned in this article: amaranth, angelica, basil, chamomile, cilantro, fennel (for the fronds), hyssop, lavender, lemongrass, marjoram, mint, oregano, parsley, sage, shiso, summer savory, tarragon, and thyme. If you take the plunge and grow your own herbs, you'll have both the satisfaction of creation and the many frustrations of being a gardener. Although my mint has been extremely rewarding, I've had absolutely no luck getting shiso seeds to germinate. Not that I would know what to do with shiso, but that hasn't kept me from trying to get it to grow: Experimentation and the palate expansion that can result are a huge part of what's pleasurable about gardening for drinks. And when what's in the glass tastes good, and you can share your creations with friends, that's when the real fun begins.
James Rodewald started tending bar in college, never had a hangover until he was a reporter at Sports Illustrated, and always chose quality over quantity during his time as drinks editor at Gourmet magazine. His last piece for Gourmet Live covered beers, wines, and liqueurs made by religious orders.