As part of Eater's first ever Cocktail Week, bartenders at five Chicago restaurants or bars made a special limited-edition cocktail, served just this week. Today we introduce the No Comment from Jeff Donahue at Barrelhouse Flat.
Barrelhouse Flat is known for having an eclectic, forward-thinking cocktail program that works off the classics. Eater reached out to bar manager Jeff Donahue to see what original drink he could cook up for Cocktail Week and he jumped at the chance of being even more creative.
The No Comment, inspired by the fact that Donahue reads Eater all the time, but "I never really comment on it ... it's just a tongue in cheek name." The drink uses Hayman's Gin as the base spirit and adds muddled cucumber, cumin liqueur with tonka bean syrup and salt for a savory tart drink. All the ingredients are shaken and served in a cocktail glass without ice. As far as the ingredients go, Donahue said, "They all seem to make a lot of sense together."
The drink came about when Donahue was muddling cucumber and felt for some reason like it needed some vanilla. And then he thought about the cumin liqueur. "I try to work with flavor combinations that are natural together and put them together in a way that's unusual together," he said. "These things in my mind all work well together and you don't see them that often together." The result is one of the most savory cocktails Donahue said he has ever constructed.
Pop by Barrelhouse Flat all week for the No Comment, which will be available for $11.
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