The Louboutin Cocktail

We named this the louboutin cocktail because we recently visited Saison – the 3-starred Michelin restaurant best known for having the most expensive tasting menu in California.

We decided to invest in some liquid courage to face what would come at the end of the meal: the bill. And invest we did! We tried several of their signature cocktails, which has changed since previous bar director Anthony Keels left with a bit of controversial lawsuit-ing (the restaurant attempted to sue Anthony with a $500k lawsuit for “stealing IP.” As a side note: we absolutely love Anthony Keels and think he’s one of the top mixologists; he is now over at Eight Tables by George Chen. If you get the chance, go there and taste his cocktails and eat their food.

But I digress. We also started flipping through their spirits list and to our delight, we spotted the Navazos Palazzi whisky. This has been on our “want” list ever since we reviewed their delicious funky rum (an exceptional 9/10).

When we asked for the grain whisky, the sommelier mentioned they could craft a cocktail for us. And thus the Louboutin Cocktail was born.

The resulting Manhattan-like cocktail was splendid. Nutty, funky, and a bit blue cheese almost. The amari along with the Navazos was a Elisir Novasalus, which our sommelier described as “prank your friends with it because it’s so bitter”. On Astor wines, the staff pick notes on the amari are “The following is a recommendation, but also a warning: Elisir Novasalus is likely the most bitter thing we sell here. I mean, just startlingly, starkly bitter.” 

They kindly provided the recipe free of charge and without threat of lawsuit. Also the food was excellent.

The Louboutin Cocktail

Ingredients

• 2 oz Equippo Navazzos grain whisky
• 1 oz dry vermouth (Dolin)
• 0.25 oz Elisir Novasalus

Glass

Coupe

Instructions

• Stir 30X and strain