Bitter Battles

Originally Published in the New School Free Press 4/13/2009

Several weeks ago, I had the pleasure of receiving an invitation o the King Cole Bar Lounge at the St. Regis for cocktails with my uncle.

I quickly accepted. I’d been trying to find someone to pick up the tab for its notoriously expensive drinks and elaborate atmosphere. I knew what I was getting out of it, but what would a CEO want from a tippling niece?

Confused as to the nature of the visit, I made sure to look adequately respectable—though I stumbled a bit in my stilettos—when I entered the midtown hotel’s back room.

There he was, in an expertly tailored suit, standing in front of the classic Maxwell Parish mural. Surrounded by businessmen trying to get his attention, he spotted me and waved as I traversed the small, dim room.

“We saved you a seat,” he said, pulling coats off a plush stool. The businessmen happily surrounded me instead.

After a failed attempt to get a gin fizz (“No eggs,” said one confused barkeep), I ordered a gin martini, up with a twist. The businessmen murmured their approval, bathed in flattery but my uncle offered a bit of advice.

“Here, try this,” he said, pushing a brownish liquor in immaculate stemware towards me. “A Cynar Negroni.”

Now, I’ve had my share of experience with Negronis, a cocktail traditionally made of equal parts gin, vermouth, and Campari—which ends up tasting mostly like the last ingredient, an Italian aperitif made from the infusion of herbs and fruits.

The first time it was offered to me was at the restaurant where I was working, by a particularly flirtations manager during a tasting meeting in what I believed to be an attempt to impress me. I think that, after my sip the face I made discouraged any further experimentation on my behalf.

You see, to call a Negroni an acquired taste would be putting it lightly. I suppose you could say the result is… mouth puckering? However, the exchange of Campari for Cynar, and artichoke-based liquor—even more bitter, to the point of discomfort—makes the brown cocktail seem to suck the moisture out of every saliva-producing part of your mouth. “Dry” doesn’t even begin to cover it.

“I can’t drink sweet drinks,” he said.

Neither can I, I told him I want my alcohol to taste like alcohol! The only flavoring I like is ice! This was not only not sweet, but painfully so. I tipped my rhetorical hat to him. The lush, it would appear, had finally been out-lushed.