L’Oca d’Oro Beverage Director shares her recipe for Cleanest Dirty Shirt – a seasonal cocktail dedicated to Kris Kristofferson.
For foodie Austinites with a passion for local sourcing and seasonal menus, L’Oca d’Oro has offered a carefully curated farm-to-table menu of high-quality Italian-inspired dishes created by Chef Fiore Tedesco since 2016. The restaurant is known for its fresh, rotating menu and hand-crafted ingredients, but L’Oca’s commitment to the homemade doesn’t end with their food. Beverage Director Eva Suter oversees an exciting program of liqueurs, aperitifs and digestifs made in-house by herself and her team, which she employs in her dynamic cocktail menu that changes to mirror L’Oca’s seasonal cuisine.
All L’Oca d’Oro’s liqueurs and bitters are hand-made and carry unique flavors of Texas terroir. As foraged beverages become increasingly on-trend for both their flavor and sustainability properties, L’Oca keeps things hyperlocal, making only what they use in-house. These proprietary blends are not for sale and can only be sampled at the restaurant.
Suter uses plants she has responsibly foraged – such as redbud, dewberries and loquats – and taps local producers for ingredients like Meyer lemons and Roselle hibiscus. In keeping with L’Oca’s sustainability mantra, the fruits, vegetables and herbs leftover from L’Oca’s kitchen find their way into Suter’s liqueurs; which include varieties of Amari, Vermouth and Limoncello.
“My role gives me a lot of opportunity for independent expression,” says Suter, “And creating L’Oca’s liqueurs and cocktail menu enables me to really appreciate what can be made with seasonal produce.”
Ever-curious and experimental, Suter is currently preparing Texas pear cores and skins for a future infusion that will form the base of a fruit punch.
A keen forager from the Northeast, Suter began to familiarize herself with local flora and fauna, exploring their properties in liqueurs after she started at L’Oca seven years ago Tedesco encouraged Suter to experiment, as he was already working on homemade Amari.
During her tenure at L’Oca, that menu has expanded to include three varieties of aromatic bitters and 12-13 liqueurs at any given time. Recipes change and evolve, some sunset and return, and many are unique to the ingredients on hand at any given moment, promising an exclusive drinking experience worth trying.
For Suter, the creativity involved in both mixology and creating infusions drives her passion in this role.
“My background is as a theater artist and writer, although I’ve been in bars and restaurants almost as long,” Suter says. “And something scratches the same itch in my brain as writing. We are making everything ourselves and thinking of all the individual ingredients and what goes with what – it’s creative problem solving that makes me think in a similar way to my writing process.”
Suter chose to share the recipe for Cleanest Dirty Shirt as it’s a new addition to her fall cocktail menu, and a timely ode to country music scion Kris Kristofferson’s recent passing.
“I was looking for something exciting for the fall menu whiskey slot and really like working with Roselle – L’Oca’s hibiscus sweet vermouth – so picked that as a starting point,” Suter says. “I knew I also wanted to work with toasted rosemary. I love smoking it and adding it to a glass and it goes with the warming sense of the holiday season.”
Suter had been discussing Kristofferson’s passing with guests at the restaurant and felt the ingredients drew on the memory of the author of songs including Whiskey, Whiskey and Hemingway’s Whiskey, so she picked the drink’s name from one of Kristofferson’s best-known songs, Sunday Morning Coming Down.
Recipe: Cleanest Dirty Shirt
Yield, 4 drinks
· 3.75oz G&W Straight Bourbon
· 3 oz Harlston Green Blended Scotch Whisky
· 3 oz Vermut Roselle (substitutions below)
· 2.25 oz Limoncello (substitutions below)
· Large ice cubes
· Toasted rosemary
Directions:
· Stir all ingredients in a chilled glass pitcher until just cold, pour evenly into four glasses, serve on a single large ice cube. Finish with toasted rosemary.
· Trim fresh rosemary into 2-2 1/2 inch pieces, use a lighter to gently toast the length of the herb, drop into cocktail immediately before serving.
Substitutions:
Sweet Vermouth:
· Lustau’s Vermut Rojo – the sherry in the base gives it a nice nutty depth
· Punt e Mes – fun, and brings a little more balanced bitterness
· Carpano Antica – a classic for a reason
· Austin Winery’s Vermut – keep it local!
Limoncello:
· Luxardo – based on their original 1905 recipe
· Limoncello Villa Massa di Sorento – a solid balanced option
· Make your own if you have time!
Suter posits the drink as halfway between a Manhattan and a Vieux Carre. If not using her listed brands, Suter recommends a drier bourbon and a blended scotch with minimal peatiness.
“The drink’s flavor profile focuses on balance, aiming not to be too heavy or weigh you down but still drink as a whiskey-based cocktail,” says Suter.
Suter’s key piece of advice for making this drink at home is to make sure you like the taste of everything you’re using.
“When dealing with sweet vermouth or aromatized red wine, make sure it tastes good to you – the best way to make sure you like what’s in the glass is to be proud of everything you put in.”