Interview: Cocktail Guy Naren Young (AvroKo Hospitality Group)

Bartender New York City

INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

What would you like to be known for as a bartender?

I would just like to be known for somebody who’s honest, has integrity and is always looking to make everything we do, I do, behind the bar, better, all the time. I’m always looking to improve and just inspire all these people under me. I’d like to be known as somebody who inspires the next wave of people coming through.

How do you distinguish classic cocktails at Saxon + Parole?

A couple of the signature drinks we have here that seem very pedestrian on the menu, like Gin and Tonic, Manhattan – even though it comes out of the beer tap – and a Dry Martini, most venues would never put them on an actual menu because anyone would order them. We have such a special way in which we serve them, they deserve to be put on a pedestal. People go crazy over these three drinks. We make our own tonic water in-house, which a lot of people don’t do. We serve it on a beautiful ice sphere. We have our house-made grapefruit bitters, and gin.


Cocktail New York City

The Martini, I was thinking I’ve seen so many martinis around town served in massive glasses, by the time you finish it, it’s just a warm glass of insipid gin or vodka. I wanted to go back to a different time when most cocktails like this were served in really small glassware. It was two ounces, maybe three ounces max. Drinks like this should be served cold, refreshing, beautiful, ice cold on the tongue. The only way to do that is to have a tiny glass and the rest on crushed ice, so it stays cold, and you can top it off when you finish. The main thing is you can have a choice of garnishes. You get a big, large Cerignola olive. You get a lemon, which we actually fold into a little twist, which obviously takes time. With all of our cocktail programs, the main thing I want people to realize is it’s all in the details. We have leather coasters, beautiful hand-cut glassware, hand-carved ice behind the bar. I want people to know that everything they get here is done for a reason. It’s like this lemon twist, which I think people really appreciate. Someone literally had to tie that into a knot. We do hundreds of them a night. We do the same for a Manhattan with an orange twist. There’s an onion here, so if they want a Gibson, they can have the onion. The onion here is actually pickled in the same seven botanicals as Plymouth gin, which we have in there. So there’s a nice synergy between the garnish and the actual drink. With a lot of our drinks, the sum of the parts is more than the actual drink itself. It’s more than just a martini. It’s a work of art.

What’s the most recent cocktail that you created, regardless of location, and what was your inspiration and approach?

That’s a good question. I came up with a drink the other day that has fresh carrots in it, and I remember I was at a dinner recently at Eleven Madison Park, and they made this carrot tartare at the table, on the table, in a meat grinder. It just got me thinking about carrots, and I’m working on things for the spring menu right now. Even though it’s the depths of winter, I’m always trying to work several months in advance so we can be ready to go and roll it out. It got me thinking about carrots, so I had this drink called the Carrot Top, which is tequila, fresh carrot juice, some ginger, some cardamom. I was thinking about all those things you’d find in carrot soup. Those spicy curry flavors you’d get. And tequila’s such a great product and works really well with savory ingredients, so I had that with a crispy dehydrated carrot, sitting on top like a chip, and a little half-rim of black lava salt, so it was this sweet-savory, spicy. It had some chile in there, fresh lemon, and strikingly beautiful. So you have bright orange with the black salt rim. I like to have garnishes you can eat and things that are interactive, kind of primal.

Will that go on the menu at Saxon + Parole?

Yeah.

What’s one piece of advice that another bartender gave you that’s really stuck with you?

Just treat everyone the same. Because you never know who someone is. It could be the brother of the other. It could be a celebrity. It could be someone’s mother. It could be a critic. Just treat everyone with the same respect.

Is there anyone in particular who said that to you?

Probably it would have been Jason Crawley, who was my mentor and hero back in Sydney in the late ’90s. One of world’s great bartenders.

Is he still bartending?

Not anymore. He still works in Sydney, he does training and education, but he’s the kind of been there, done that kind of guy.

If you could only fill your glass one more time, would you have a cocktail or spirit in there? Regardless of what you choose, which one?

It would be a Negroni.

How come?

It’s been my favorite cocktail forever. It’s just such an intriguing, polarizing, complex, delicious cocktail that I could drink at 5 p.m. or 5 a.m. quite happily.

Who gets to make you that Negroni?

Jason Crawley.

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Joshua Lurie

Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.

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