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, Brother Cleve, formerly of cocktail lounge band, The Combustibles, takes on grunge.
In creating this drink, Cleve explains: “I thought of Tad Doyle [lead singer of TAD], his roots of Ireland and the Northwest. Fortunately, the fine folks at Oregon’s Ransom distillery partnered with David Wondrich to concoct a lost style of making Irish pot still whiskey utilizing Oatmeal in the mash along with the usual suspects, malted and unmalted barley. The end result is big, bold, uncompromising and somewhat rude. Add some beef broth for beef-cake-y-ness, espresso liqueur in another nod to the area, Jägermeister, because, why not, and a bit of Bittermens Hellfire, and you’ve got a veritable homage. And, for a bit of sweetening, well, a band that recorded a song called ‘Jack Pepsi’ probably doesn’t want a different Cola in their drink. I’m just guessing, of course.”