To explore the overlap between the worlds of drinks and music, we challenged bartenders to translate a song of their choice from a given era into cocktail form. Here, Sother Teague of Amor y Amargo takes on grunge.
In creating this drink, Teague explains: “I chose the song ‘Even Flow’ from Pearl Jam. It’s about the plight of a homeless man who likely also suffers from mental illness. Classic chicken-and-egg story of which came first, the homelessness or the illness.
“My drink harkens back to my youth. When I would go to punk rock shows as a young man, we’d always drink Cutty Sark. Among my friends, we still refer to it as ‘the punk rock Scotch,’ so it seemed fitting to use in a grunge-related cocktail.
“This cocktail is a riff on the Sammy Ross neoclassic Penicillin. Bold Scotch plus floral Strega and … Becherovka, all tempered by the juiciness of Montenegro.
“In ‘Even Flow’, the man chases away his thoughts like butterflies; the atomized Scotch atop the drink is representative of something critical to the whole, but is somewhat unobtainable. The name is a simple descriptor of Eddie Vedder’s unmistakable voice.”