Five Bay Ridge Cocktail Variations: Putting A Twist On The Classic
New York has always enjoyed a special spot on the international map, as far as great, dynamic cities go. It is a culture in itself, which means its culinary and drinking scene is just as rich and inventive. One of the quirkiest cocktail fashions in this sparkling city has been naming drinks after neighbourhoods. From the Brooklyn cocktail to the Manhattan mix, the drinks emerging out of this city have been fabulous tributes to the spots from which they originate, or the ones they celebrate. And over time, many of these concoctions have garnered global attention.
One such drink is the Bay Ridge cocktail which makes use of some classic ingredients like rye whisky, dry vermouth, Benedictine, prune brandy and bitters which infuse this mix with a lot of interesting flavours. The origin of this modern recipe can be traced to the iconic cocktail bar Clover Club in Brooklyn where the drink was crafted in 2014 as a revival of the trend to name drinks after the city’s neighbourhoods. Now, the cocktail has become quite the classic recipe and is concocted as a fond recollection of this famous fashion.
Over time, bartenders have been putting some trendy, other classic twists on the cocktail to experiment with its flavour profile. Here are some of the neighbourhood twists that you can put on this drink when you turn bartender at home and decide to pay tribute to New York’s fine areas:
Red Hook Twist
A delectable concoction marking one of New York’s classic areas is the Red Hook which is rather similar to the Bay Ridge, except it contains a full-bodied vermouth and some maraschino liqueur that makes it a tad sweeter than its close cousin. You can put a slight twist on the classic Bay Ridge by introducing the sweetness of the Red Hook into a mix containing rye whisky and bitters. The sweet notes of the cherry liqueur will undercut some of the bitterness in the recipe.
Crown Heights Negroni Mix
Swap out the whisky for a sorrel gin when you are crafting a twist that includes the flavours of a Crown Heights negroni. With this mix, you can include aged vermouth and Italian bitters into the Bay Ridge recipe along with the prune brandy to give the drink a slightly complex touch. Build all the ingredients in order to arrive at a rather layered mixture that celebrates the bitter notes of a very potent cocktail.
Greenpoint Inclusion
This cocktail contains rosso vermouth and aromatic bitters which introduce a sweet and sour quality into the cocktail. When crafting a slight variation of the Bay Ridge, you can include both these ingredients into the recipe while doing away with the dry vermouth. This will imbue a sweetness into the otherwise tart and bitter cocktail and infuse it with quite an irresistible aroma. With the addition of orange bitters, you can also introduce some citrusy notes into the classic recipe.
Sunset Park’s Chilled Water
This drink is made from rather similar ingredients that go into crafting a quintessential Bay Ridge. However, the addition of chilled water in the recipe reduces the intensity of the sweet and tart ingredients, making the cocktail slightly more approachable. You can introduce a similar twist into the classic Bay Ridge by adding a splash of chilled water which really balances the notes of the dry vermouth and Benedictine that can sometimes become rather overpowering leading to a flavour imbalance.
Bushwick Boldness
Another neighbourhood classic, the Bushwick is also crafted from rye whisky, except it is a bold drink with very apparent sweet notes. If the bitterness of the Bay Ridge becomes too much to handle, introduce a floral aperitif into the drink or simply do away with the dry vermouth and add a splash of the sweet variant to make a balanced concoction.
