Superbueno, a Mexican American cocktail bar in New York Metropolis, isn’t a type of locations you simply pop into for a fast spherical. Not if Ignacio “Nacho” Jimenez, the bar’s charismatic co-owner, has something to say about it. Like Jimenez’s earlier outpost, the beloved and now-shuttered Ghost Donkey, Superbueno is as a lot in regards to the vibe—consider it as a cocktail bar meets a home occasion—as it’s in regards to the artistic meals and drinks.
The pendant lights suspended above the bar prime are continuously swinging; the rhythmic Latin hits blaring inevitably incite dancing, particularly after visitors throw again a few the bar’s cult-favorite Inexperienced Mango Martinis; and the LED lights that illuminate the area in magenta or scarlet purple have an distinctive capacity to distort time. It’s all within the title of enjoyable, which Jimenez considers as necessary as taste—a sentiment that’s clearly expressed in his playful cocktails.
“The menu honors numerous notable Mexican components and dishes,” says Jimenez of the concise 10-drink record, which incorporates a vary of choices, from low-ABV to extra spirit-forward. “There’s a little one thing for everybody.” Probably the most in style drinks is the easygoing, but subtle, Vodka y Soda, a crowd-pleasing highball layered with chile spice that takes the fundamental, underwhelming vodka-soda and turns it right into a tropical, crushable serve.
So simple as the cocktail reads on the menu—“vodka, guava, pasilla, soda”— its growth was something however. “Guava is one in every of my favourite flavors, so I made a decision to develop a highball constructed across the fruit,” says Jimenez. He “performed round with totally different approaches to make a minimalist-looking highball with numerous punch and taste.” At the beginning of his artistic course of, he relied on an array of gloopy housemade guava syrups, however none match the invoice for his imaginative and prescient. After making about 10 variations of the drink, a member of his employees steered clarifying the hefty syrup for a cleaner aesthetic and mouthfeel. Jimenez says this was his “aha!” second.
To make clear the purée, he provides pectinase earlier than letting it relaxation, permitting the enzyme to interrupt down any of the cloudy pectin current. He then provides water to the combination and brings it to a boil in a saucepan. As soon as the pectinase-dosed purée reaches a boil, agar-agar powder (one other clarifying agent) is dissolved into the combination; after that rests and congeals, Jimenez strains the semisolid mix by a espresso filter. The result’s a flavor-packed guava “water,” which Jimenez makes use of to create a cordial by acidifying the water with tartaric and malic acids and sweetening it with sugar.
With the guava portion accomplished, Jimenez felt he wanted yet another taste dimension to make the cocktail stand out. “Mexicans love to mix fruit with a contact of spice to make this form of candy, bitter and spicy mixture,” he says. So he infused the vodka with pasilla chile pepper, an ingredient that additionally has dry fruit taste notes that “play nicely with the guava.” Jimenez rounds out the spice and tropical tones with guajillo pepper, a element that he says additionally provides extra coloration to the infusion for extra alluring visible enchantment.
To tie collectively all the weather of the Vodka y Soda, Superbueno provides a contact of Velvet Falernum to the combination earlier than force-carbonating all of it in a batch. The drink will get a guava salt rim—made from Maldon salt combined with guava purée, baked at a low temperature till dehydrated—which echoes the candy, bitter and spicy theme.
The vodka-soda is among the most simple, albeit in style, cocktail orders, however Jimenez and his crew remodeled it into one thing exceptional. And although it was initially conceived as a brief, seasonal addition to the bar’s record of drinks, it has established itself as a menu mainstay and one of many bar’s bestselling cocktails. As Jimenez says, “The great thing about our Vodka y Soda is that no person expects the vodka-soda to be elevated, however our minimalist take is filled with stunning complexity for drinkers who give it an opportunity.”
