Bywater Cocktail

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Every July I spend two weeks in New Orleans, leading a team of amazing bartenders from around the globe at Tales of the Cocktail.   For those of you who don’t know, TOTC is the largest cocktail festival in the world, and the Cocktail Apprentice Program is highly respected in the industry.  It is an amazing experience and I am blessed to be a part of it. My first year was 2010, and one of the people I was fortunate enough to meet, work with and become lifelong friends with, was Chris Hannah.   Chris was the head bartender at Arnaud’s French 75 Bar for many, many years and has received well deserved national and international press for his incredible hospitality, innovative cocktails and knowledge of all things New Orleans.   I had the pleasure during this trip to go to Chris’s new bar, Jewel of the South, and was not disappointed. The space is beautiful, the food and cocktails exceptional, and of course that southern hospitality that you receive when sitting on the other side of his bar is unmatched.

All that being said, as I sit here on my flight back home, the subject of this article was an easy decision.   When I make my annual pilgrimage to New Orleans, I stay in the French Quarter, but there is another great part of the city called the “Bywater”.  This historic neighborhood is part of the Ninth Ward, but is also located along the natural levee of the Mississippi River. There are some fantastic bars and restaurants in this area as well as a thriving art scene.

Chris Hannah created what I like to call a “modern classic”, called “The Bywater”, which was first written about in Food and Wine Magazine’s “Cocktails 2009”.   It is truly one of my favorite rum drinks and one that I wish more people knew about!!  I spoke with Chris about his inspiration:

“When I discovered the Brooklyn Cocktail I wanted to make a similar boozy drink w/ the Amer Replica Jamie Boudreau came up w/ back in 2006.  I realized a lot of service industry folks who worked in Manhattan lived in Brooklyn, same for a lot of my friends who work in French Quarter restaurants, they live in Bywater.  I designed the drink after the Brooklyn Cocktail recipe since the Bywater neighborhood resembles Brooklyn in a lot of ways”.

A classic Brooklyn consists of Rye Whiskey, Dry Vermouth, Amer Picon and Luxardo liqueur.  The Brooklyn could be considered a variation of the Manhattan, and Chris Hannah’s BYWATER may be modeled after it, but I think the Bywater is much more complex and delicious.

Chris told me he prefers to use the Plantation OFTD, which is a rich, overproof blend of Jamaican, Barbados and Guyana rums.   It is bottled at 69% ABV and has notes of chocolate, caramel, vanilla and orange. I believe it is the perfect rum for this cocktail because it is able to shine through and still be the star of the drink, even with the other bold spirits that are in it.   Green Chartreuse can be very greedy in cocktails, but it adds just enough herbal and vegetal notes in the Bywater to round out the complexity. There are many amaros in the market so the common one I would suggest here is Averna. It will add all of the deep chocolate and fig flavors without overpowering the rest of the ingredients. The spicy and vibrant Falernum will contribute clove and citrus, which brightens the other spirits.   In the 2009 Food and Wine cocktail book, Chris said he would pair the Bywater with a “Maduro wrapped stogie (cigar) because their complexities match”. I would have to agree.

If you haven’t ever enjoyed a Bywater, by all means, get the ingredients and make it asap!!   And please, if you go to New Orleans, go see Chris at Jewel of the South, and tell him Cris sent you!

Cris