Within the Again Room bar at New York Metropolis’s Double Hen Please, the menu resembles that of a typical American diner. Waldorf Salad, NY Beet Salad and Key Lime Pie are only a few of the choices—and that’s simply the cocktail menu. Led by co-founders GN Chan and Faye Chen, Double Hen Please seamlessly transforms these acquainted dishes into drinks that problem the thoughts as a lot as they stimulate the palate.
“Our cocktails and meals are deconstructed, redefined and rebuilt within the spirit of hacking design,” says Chan. “They’re drink renditions of iconic meals, reassembled as boozy, liquid variations of the dishes.”
Whereas the “salads” play the position of liquid appetizer, and different drinks, like Chilly Pizza, act as most important course, the French Toast performs the position of dessert. “I actually take pleasure in French toast as a dish, however for me, it’s extra of a dessert meals than a breakfast meals,” says Chan, who felt the dish’s inherent sweetness made it an excellent candidate to turn into a cocktail.
On the menu, the French Toast is described as Gray Goose, roasted barley, brioche, coconut, milk, maple syrup and egg—the mix of which yields a wealthy, flip-style cocktail. To garnish, a bittersweet Espresso Martini–flavored “Oreo” is rested on the rim of the glass. The playful accompanying chew is ostensibly easy, however like each different drink and dish at Double Hen Please, the satan is actually within the particulars.
Chan and Chen make use of an array of strategies to include every taste into the drink. First, the Gray Goose vodka—chosen for its use of winter wheat, an ingredient usually utilized in pastry—is infused with roasted barley tea to emphasise a strong grain base. Toasted brioche that has been blended and cooked with maple syrup provides to the bready profile, making a focus, which is then mixed with entire milk and coconut water. Within the ultimate stage, after the brioche liquid combination is chilled—consistent with the French toast theme—uncooked egg is added, blended and strained.
“I needed to infuse precise brioche and milk taste in a means that is sensible in a flip cocktail context,” says Chan. Capturing the essence of brioche was a problem that required some ingenuity. Chan first experimented by infusing a spirit with brioche, however finally discovered that mixing the bread with maple syrup right into a liquid labored finest. The sugar amplified the brioche’s character. Nonetheless, Chan felt there was one lacking part.
“I believed the drink wanted one other ingredient to marry these flavors collectively,” explains Chan. “That’s the place the coconut water got here in.” Chan opts for Innocent Harvest—a model chosen for its distinct coconut taste—to not solely steadiness the nutty, candy, toasty flavors of the bread and grain base, but additionally to chop a number of the creamy richness from the dairy. It was the thread that held the drink in good concord.
The French Toast cocktail itself is beautiful and completely moreish, however the housemade “Oreo” elevates the drink to a different stage. A pal of Chan’s in Taiwan designed a cookie mould, which Chan and Chen had printed at a studio in Brooklyn. The bar makes use of the molds to make “destructive molds” out of silicone, in order that selfmade cookies will be pressed into them.
To really make the cookies, Em Pak, the bar’s occasions supervisor and an avid baker, developed a recipe that mixes baked black cocoa crumbs and barely bitter darkish chocolate to steadiness the richness of the flip. The cookies are then made into sandwiches stuffed with whipped white chocolate–espresso ganache, resembling an Oreo.
“We advocate taking a sip, a chew, then one other sip, because the flavors of the chew will change the way you style the cocktail afterwards,” says Chan, whose menu incorporates a number of different cocktails that include meals pairings, like their Crimson Eye Gravy and Butter Raisin Biscuit.
As a lot because the French Toast showcases Double Hen Please’s technical skill, the drink can also be whimsical, subverting established concepts of food and drinks. As Chan explains, with the cocktail, “You’re successfully ingesting your French Toast and consuming your Espresso Martini.”
