As soon as a responsible pleasure thrown again in seaside bars throughout America, the Miami Vice has discovered new relevance past indiscriminate trip ingesting. Some professionals, like bartender Joaquín Simó, have come to understand it in its authentic type: “The Miami Vice is probably essentially the most good frozen drink ever created,” Simó has mentioned. Others, nonetheless, have discovered its mashup construct—half Piña Colada, half Strawberry Daiquiri—to be the proper invitation to higher-minded experimentation, and have tweaked the two-toned drink to suit their viewpoint.
Take into account Nico de Soto’s Wasabi + Cilantro at New York’s Mace. De Soto goes baroque, rebuilding the Piña Colada portion with bacon fats–washed rum, sous-vide plantain coconut cream, pineapple juice and cilantro tea, whereas the Strawberry Daiquiri half is comprised of strawberry purée plus an elaborate wasabi-infused rum that’s clarified with a soy milk wash. The flavors have been impressed by de Soto’s travels by Sweden and Peru, he says. Friends can pattern the Wasabi + Cilantro parts individually or combine them collectively “for an explosion of flavors and complexity,” he suggests.
Whereas it might appear to be a idiot’s errand to contort a simple slushy basic into a posh showpiece, it’s consistent with the bar’s menu, which emphasizes herbs, spices and flavors from across the globe, in addition to de Soto’s personal fashion, which leans onerous on fat-washing and comparable methods.
However de Soto is hardly alone within the pursuit of discovering methods to construct a greater—or at the least extra upscale—Miami Vice. At Cane & Desk in New Orleans, native Ponchatoula-grown strawberries grew to become the centerpiece for the Strawberry Daiquiri portion of the bar’s made-from-scratch Miami Vice. And at San Francisco’s The Beehive, a extra conceptual model emerges within the Miami Good: Guava purée is a stunning stand-in for strawberry, accompanied by allspice dram, aged rum and coconut cream. The drink is whirred collectively, eschewing the standard candy-striped look; it might drink like a cousin to the basic Miami Vice, but it surely doesn’t seem like one.
Likewise, the Miami Vice at Nashville’s Chopper Tiki—dubbed Milk Punch XVI—is crystal-clear, its look masking the complexity of the oolong-infused tackle the cocktail.
In the meantime, Brooklyn’s Rule of Thirds serves the Miami Rice. The punny identify got here first, says Rule of Thirds bar director Brian Evans, who admits he’s by no means really tried a basic Miami Vice. Nevertheless, he acknowledged how shortly the visible impact of a layered drink pulls individuals in. “It’s the ‘scorching fajita’ impact,” says Evans. “You see it, you gotta have it, simply based mostly on the way it seems.”
The drink begins with Beniotome Sesame Shochu, a barley shochu distilled with sesame seeds, and sake kasu (a byproduct of constructing sake) from Brooklyn Kura, brewed right into a syrup “that emulates the viscosity and richness of a Coco Lopez [coconut cream].” The shochu and syrup are blended with two varieties of rum and pineapple, cucumber and lime juices, making a Japanese-inflected tackle a Piña Colada. It’s then swirled with a Strawberry Daiquiri purée that mixes contemporary strawberries with cane sugar and overproof rum.
Additionally in New York, Chez Zou’s Alpattah Swirl brings collectively the bar’s home frozen Pina Colada with its Porn Star Martini standing in for the strawberry Daiquiri portion, all served spiraled collectively in a Hurricane glass and topped with a float of Aperol and spoonful of arak-soaked raisins. Their Haifa Vice, in the meantime, was designed to play with the layered component of the drink. Served in a jarra pitcher, every element with its personal spout, the vessel permits visitors to regulate the quantity of every drink that they pour into their glasses.
Elsewhere, Andrew “Coco” Cordero, former bar supervisor of J & Tony’s in San Diego, discovered inspiration in Hawaii, the place he first sampled a Miami Vice in late 2020. “I mentioned, ‘Why aren’t we doing this?’” he recollects. Returning house, he was decided to discover a method to make the drink match with J & Tony’s emphasis on amari, aperitif spirits and fortified wines. The outcome: a Piña Colada that folds in nutty amontillado sherry and Amaro Montenegro. In the meantime, a frozen Jungle Fowl stands in for the Strawberry Daiquiri element, amped up with further cinnamon as a nostalgic nod to the horchata that Cordero grew up ingesting. “That cinnamon taste is addicting to me,” he says.
In Cordero’s view, the Miami Vice has turn into an unlikely springboard for frozen innovation, permitting a way of caprice to paved the way advert infinitum.“It’s difficult to attempt to discover two issues that you’d suppose don’t match, and make them play good with one another,” he says. “That’s form of what I believe the enjoyable and the great thing about this drink is.”
Pictured: The Alpattah Swirl at Chez Zou in New York Metropolis.
