Intoxicating Husk

Everyone and their mother is talking about the new Husk restaurant so we’re going to be really different and not.

We are going to talk about the bar, though.

You may feel like a genteel Southern aristocrat or an avant-garde modernist (or both) while sipping a cocktail at the newly opened watering hole.

Traditional and modern elements blend seamlessly on both the bar menu and in the space. The bar occupies a restored kitchen house next to the restaurant where old exposed brick and wooden beams are beautifully juxtaposed with oversized luxe banquettes with leather seats and a dashing red polka-dot motif.

The cocktail menu is equally divided between “Historic” and “Modern” drinks and is quite a read with names like “Corpse Reviver #2,” “Monkey Gland,” “The Dirty South” and “Rosemary’s Baby.”

The lead bartenders worked for months with Beverage Director/Sommelier Clint Sloan and Executive Chef Sean Brock to develop a carefully composed menu. The historic drinks were culled from old books like the Bar-Tender’s Guide (1862) and Esquire’s Guide to Cocktails.

Staying true to ingredients that are grown or made in the South is quite a feat, but it is the gospel at Husk. For that reason you’ll find pickled okra instead of olives, salt that is produced in the region, and cranberry juice that is bottled in Florida. The few exceptions to this rule are with wine, spirits, and an ingredient that adds real pizzazz to the modern drink menu- soy protein for making foam.

In the first three weeks since its opening, one modern seasonal cocktail has been the obvious favorite – “Fire in the Orchard” – but you’ll be lucky if you get one since the boys at Husk have juiced and smoked their last bushel of regional apples until summer rolls back around. But worry not, this drink is going into their “bar bible” and will be back in good time. And because they are new millenium mixologists, new creations should be just as exciting.

Another customer favorite is the “The Back Seat” which uses a little molecular gastronomy magic to create a luscious orange juice-Cointreau foam served with bourbon and a smashed sage leaf.

From the hand-chipped ice to the etched copper mugs used for a particular cocktail to keep it cold, the attention to detail is paramount: a 25-ingredient house-made bloody mary mix, 56 bourbons, and their own oak-aged cocktails. Perhaps the most glam thing to order is one of the high-end bourbons served over an ice sphere made in a Japanese copper press right in front of you. A block of ice is melted using pressure and warm water to create a shimmering sphere that chills your bourbon without diluting it too much. Kentucky-Japanese cool.

The juices are all freshly squeezed, of course. The many house-made ingredients will pique the interest of any gourmand and include sweet vermouth, orgeat, and falernum (cheers to you if you can pronounce these correctly).

All this cocktail talk is quite intoxicating on its own but moving on to the wine and beer. The worldly wine list may be the only one of its kind organized by terroir, the soil the grapes are grown in. The micro-brewed beer selection is a small list of stellar brews, mostly from the Carolinas. You can’t go wrong there.

So go sip on your modern-historic cocktail at the hot spot du jour. It’s intoxicating.

HuskRestaurant.com

Story by: Dee Dee Arthur
Photos by: Paul Cheney and Jason Kaumeyer