DECEMBER 2017 • LONGISLANDPRESS.COM 65
BY CJ ARLOTTA
Replace the gin in a Negroni with
an American whiskey and you get
the Boulevardier. But for some
mixologists, this simple swap of
base liquors isn’t enough. Aging the
ingredients in a barrel and garnishing
the cocktail with a flamed orange
twist immeasurably enhances
the taste — and is just plain fun.
“It’s really photogenic; it’s a great
color,” Doug Brickel, beverage
director and co-owner of Cork
and Kerry in Floral Park, says of
the speakeasy-style craft cocktail
bar’s Barreled Boulevardier, which
is made up of Old Overholt Rye,
Dolin Rouge Vermouth and Gran
Classico Bitter. “It’s a bright, rich
orange.”
Ascribed to Erskine Gwynne, an
American-born writer who founded
a monthly magazine in Paris
called Boulevardier, the boulevardier
cocktail is traditionally composed
of two parts bourbon, one
part sweet red vermouth and one
part Campari. The ingredients are
then poured on ice and stirred. It’s
garnished with either a cherry or
an orange peel.
“I think what you’re seeing now in
forward-thinking cocktail bars is
a lot of thoughtful reimaginings of
classical and neoclassical cocktails
through the substitution of carefully
selected spirits for their classical
counterparts,” he says. “With that
thought process, you can generally
preserve the original balance of
the drink while updating it for the
drinking public.”
The beverage boss subbed the
Campari with Gran Classico in an
attempt to make a more customer
friendly version of the Boulevardier.
“Campari can be a very, very aggressive
bitter,” Brickel says.
The two most important ingredients
in the Barreled Boulevardier
are charred oak and time.
“There was a trend for a while with
people with barrel-aged cocktails,”
he says. “Taking drinks without
fresh components — things that
aren’t going to go bad — throwing
them in a wooden barrel, and keep
it right on the bar. Fill it up, give it
seven weeks, and when you pull it
out, the whole thing changes.
“It’s going to oxidize,” he continues.
“It’s going to get nutty. You’ll get
some barrel char off of it, so it will
smooth out. The flavor will just
change.”
Cork and Kerry batched the boulevardier
in February 2016, and it’s
been aging in the five-liter barrel,
which is charred on the inside —
like it would be for bourbon — ever
since.
“The barrel was filled up with equal
parts of the three ingredients,” he
says. “As the level drops to 75 to 80
percent, we refill with equal parts
of the same ingredients, ensuring
consistency in product while allowing
for the flavors to change over
time due to contact with air and
charred oak.”
The “barrel juice” went from
tasting differently day-to-day to
week-to-week. The mix’s flavor has
remained steady for quite a while
now.
“There’s always more old than
new,” he says. “The old is always
getting older, and if you consider
that older is better, every time you
pour one it’s the best one that’s ever
come out of there.”
The mix develops roundness,
nuttiness and depth of flavor in the
barrel.
“Over the time it’s taken on the
vanilla,” Brickel says. “The vermouth,
which you usually want to
keep cold because it’s wine based,
we let go. It’s been sitting in room
temperature for a year and half.”
Cork and Kerry Barreled Boulevardier
is also garnished differently
than the traditional Boulevardier.
“For garnish what we’ll do is cut a
little orange twist and then — the
oils on the outside are flammable
— so we’ll squeeze it over the drink
through a match to caramelize
some of the oils,” he says. “It adds a
little flavor, and obviously, it’s a fun
show.”
Cork and Kerry is located at 143
Tulip Avenue in Floral Park and 24
S. Park Ave. in Rockville Centre..
Dave Bletsch, mixologist at Cork and Kerry in Floral Park, caramelizes a barrel-aged Boulevardier. (Photo by
Michel Dussack).
The flavor of the Boulevardier
gets better the longer it’s aged.
(Photo by Michel Dussack).
FOOD & DRINK
Charred oak and time
The Barreled Boulevardier’s most important ingredients