The Green Swizzle has an elusive history. Like its far more famous cousin, the Queen’s Park Swizzle, the Caribbean cocktail is a lush, cooling drink that provides relief from tropical heat. But unlike the Queen’s Park version, the Green Swizzle’s ingredients vary widely from recipe to recipe; some are rum-based, others are made with gin, some contain crème de menthe, Angostura bitters and/or falernum. The only real constants are lots of crushed ice and the now-forgotten ingredient: wormwood bitters. According to cocktail historian David Wondrich, the drink seems to have sprung up almost simultaneously at hotel bars in Trinidad, Grenada and Barbados in the waning years of the 19th century. Today, it can be found on the menu at Nashville restaurant Choy. 

Late 19th- and early 20th-century tropical hotel bars in situ, i.e., the ones actually located in the Caribbean, Singapore, Hawai‘i, etc., have long been an inspiration for modern American bartenders, including Abe Vucekovich. The bartender is a veteran of the beverage director at Meadowlark in Chicago and Choy in Nashville. At the latter restaurant, Vucekovich plays up the link between Chinese restaurants and tropical escapism that was cemented by the California tropical movement of the 1930s and ’40s (retroactively known as “tiki”), while also referencing that tropical hotel bar history. The Green Swizzle is a perfect fit.

At Choy, the It’s Not Easy (as in “...being green,” à la Kermit the Frog) iterates on the forgotten classic, among other recipes like the Chartreuse Swizzle. The base of Vucekovich’s drink is blanco tequila, which continues the Green Swizzle’s tradition of primarily using unaged spirits, while also appealing to the city’s thirst for agave. The It’s Not Easy has been Choy’s top seller since the restaurant opened in July of this year. 

An essential ingredient in the original Green Swizzle, wormwood bitters were used in the early 20th century primarily for drinks that had called for absinthe, which was banned in the U.S. in 1912. In his recipe, Vucekovich opts instead for génépy, an herbal alpine liqueur that uses mountain sage (génépy), a member of the artemisia family (to which wormwood also belongs), as its primary botanical. “It brings that eucalyptus and all that fun stuff that an alpine liqueur would bring without being overbearing like Chartreuse,” he says. “And it brings a lot of structure to the drink, too.” On crushed ice, Vucekovich notes, cocktails have a tendency to become too thin, and the génépy’s flavor profile and subtle viscosity help to combat that here.

Like the Chartreuse Swizzle and the Swampwater, which are unequivocally modern members of the Green Swizzle family, the It’s Not Easy leans on the tropical one-two punch of pineapple and lime to enhance its transportive properties. Those flavors hark back to the age of punch, which is also represented in Vucekovich’s drink through his use of green tea syrup—punches were traditionally diluted with tea—as a sweetener. The syrup provides a grounding, slightly tannic foil to the tequila base, herbaceous génépy and tropical juices, and it bolsters the drink’s requisite color.

Vucekovich is very methodical about the way he builds this drink. First, he combines the mint, green tea syrup, tequila and génépy in a footed pilsner glass. Then he allows the flavors to marry for at least 30 seconds (or up to five minutes). He then adds the pineapple and lime juices, then employs the technique he thinks works best for all swizzles: adding crushed ice in increments and swizzling between additions. “A lot of times I see crushed-ice drinks and everything just congeals on the top,” says Vucekovich. “The cocktail’s actually sitting on the bottom with this iceberg on top.” His swizzling method ensures that the crushed ice is fully incorporated with the liquid elements.

And what would a swizzle be without a beautiful bouquet of mint? The It’s Not Easy honors this timeless tradition while also increasing the herbal quotient with a spritz of green Chartreuse on the mint, which Vucekovich says “holds” the liqueur’s distinctive flavor. And there’s another oft-used swizzle touch here: a float of bitters—Peychaud’s in this case—which lends subtle notes of anise, cherry and spice to the drink’s nose.

Though guests at Choy might not register all of the various historical influences that go into the restaurant’s top-selling drink, Vucekovich hopes that its transportive properties provide a touch of escapism to all who try it. “It’s accessible enough, but adds a little bit of an adventurous note,” he says, “and hopefully tells a story for those who want to hear it.”