Best and Calvert’s call to arms in the suppressor movement was the ubiquity of strong and layered drinks that have a tendency to pack a “punch,” as Calvert puts it. “It’s a beautiful punch… but I’m kind of tired of being punched in the face.”
Low-alcohol cocktails, on the other hand, can be enjoyed throughout an evening. And at Greg Best and Paul Calvert’s Ticonderoga Club in Atlanta, the category gets a place on the menu in the form of the #1766 (aka The Courier), a warming combination of vermouth and amontillado, cut by bracing coffee liqueur and orange bitters.
“The suppressor, to me, is something with delicacy and nuance,” Calvert says. “They kind of just coast.”