We came from a mellow dinner at a tiny family restaurant that Andrés, with his electric personality and bottomless thirst for everything, had turned into an impromptu party, singing songs and slinging flaming cocktails across the bar while the owners looked on with a mixture of pride and utter terror. Back at the hotel, Andrés convinced the security guard—roused from slumber, disheveled, deeply confused by this great boozy pack of American men—that the hotel management had granted us access to the bar “at any hour of the night”. Not only did he give us free reign of the bar, but he stepped gingerly into the night as Andrés sent him off to the garden to gather herbs like a young prep cook.
Up until that point, I had been fond of saying that gin and tonic was my desert island drink, the one libation I would take with me into infinity and beyond. It was refreshing, not overly sweet, easy to drink by the bucket. But after a decade of ordering well G and Ts from grimy bars served in plastic cups, it’s safe to say I had never tasted the true potential of this glorious convergence of grain and bubbles.
Andrés made his in deep, wide-rimmed glasses with massive ice cubes fit unyieldingly in its base. It took 30 minutes for the drinks to come together, and the process, with its bruising, chiffonading, and wild last-second garnishing, was every bit as involved as one of those avant-garde masterpieces Andrés is known for back at his fleet of restaurants across the United States. The final product looked like a box of Crayolas: thin curls of lemon and lime peel, floating pebbles of pink peppercorns, a wedge of star anise, and a few fresh mint leaves, lightly crushed between Andrés’ fingers at the last second. It was everything a gin and tonic hadn’t been before: complex, bracing, a world of sweets and sours and bitters to be discovered in every sip.