IMBIBE: The Promenade

Health. Detox. Cleansing. No more Booze. No more processed okra. No more white stuff of any kind (humans excluded because they’re everywhere).

We’ve all done it. Claimed New Year’s resolutions with such fervor those staunch proclamations might as well be set in stone on Mt. Sinai.

You know the particularly difficult resolutions — completely nixing the old cocktail list. Not that there’s anything wrong with taking a break and assessing one’s health. But this is a cocktail article, damn it, so we’ll briefly note the fact many an alcoholic libation has been used medicinally for health and healing for centuries.

Come on, there’s even the well-known cheers, “To your health!”

However, it’s a lot harder to find a cocktail worth mentioning in this body-mind issue.

Fate also likes to drink, which is why she had me cross paths (over a delicious Bloody Mary) with Evan Gravell of the Salted Slate.

He may very well be my new health guru. “I came up with this drink as a digestif, but it really seemed like something you could have as an aperitif,” he paused, “or through the night. So that’s why I named it The Promenade.”

What: The Promenade

Found Where: The Salted Slate

Go Get: 

1 1/2 oz Tarragon and Orange infused Gin*

1/2 oz Fernet Branca

3/4 oz Lemon juice

1/2 oz Simple syrup

3-4 Dashes of Peychaud’s bitters

Make: Pour into a shaker with chipped ice and stiffly and quickly and righteously shake the tumbler. (When done repetitiously you’ll find nicely honed triceps and forearms.) Pour into a coupe with a wide slip of orange peel.

Evan’s right. This drink holds such clean, bright, herbal complexity you really could sip on it before, during and after dinner. Try adding this to your weekly workout routine: Hold the cocktail high in the air, cheers to your health, move from left hand to right hand over the evening to manage muscle imbalance and sip over and over and over again.

Oscar Wilde would be proud.

*Neda Khan, another Salted Slate bartender, made the infusion using orange peel and tarragon on gin for about a week. Evan’s background in the subtleties of coffees helped inspire him with this and many a cocktail creation.