Gourmet ingredients elevate Sonoma County cocktails

It’s a rite of passage. In college we drank bargain rum and generic cola, jug vodka and sugary lemon-lime soda. If we felt fancy, we added a splash of orange juice. As we matured, we moved to premium vodka, so we upped the mixers to fresh squeezed lime juice and good club soda.

Then one day, we found ourselves sipping a true handcrafted spirit, Hanson of Sonoma’s small-batch organic grape seed vodka. No ordinary mixer would do. It had to be Sonoma Syrup Co.’s No. 31 Pure Sonoma Olive Juice, made with locally sourced and naturally cured pure fruit plus a touch of sea salt for the perfect designer dirty martini.

We really knew the world of mix-ins had changed the day we wandered into the casual Whiskey Tip bar in Santa Rosa’s Roseland area. Amid the graffiti-mural walls, Beer Pong and Bacon Bomb bacon-wrapped jalapeño tater tots, we found a Cotton Tail craft cocktail made with Hangar One California grain-grape vodka married with fresh squeezed carrot and lime juices, hand-sliced cucumber and Cynar artichoke-based bittersweet liqueur infused with 13 herb and plant extracts.

The chichi cocktail trend is nothing new. Healdsburg mixologist Scott Beattie literally wrote the book on the emerging phenomenon in 2008, when he published “Artisanal Cocktails,” a recipe book of farm-to-glass cocktails. He had been working on the tome for three years while serving as manager of the former Michelin-starred Cyrus in Healdsburg, making his own huckleberry syrup and candying his own lemongrass and rhubarb.

Yet there remained a disconnect between what we could find at a fancy bar and what we could get at a neighborhood restaurant, or make easily at home.

Flash forward to today’s drinkers, who have a burgeoning thirst for the best, and demand not only premium spirits but premium mix-ins, from kombucha crafted on-site at Healdsburg’s Shed to the new Bette Jane’s Original Ginger Beer, handmade in Healdsburg.

“The whole idea of mixology seems to invite experimentation,” said Shed owner Cindy Daniel, noting that growler sales of the shop’s original on-tap kombucha, kefir water and shrubs are strong. “We’re seeing a lot of interest in making things from scratch to create unique versions of drinks.”

Today, exotic cold-pressed juices, bitters, elixirs, infusions, all-natural pure cane sugar sodas and plant-based liqueurs are increasingly celebrated in bars and on store shelves, packaged in pretty glass bottles, apothecary jars and small craft-batched kettles.

Cocktails blossom with elderflowers, hops, drinking vinegars and things that promise to improve our health, such as herbal tonics and teas.

Besides tasting better, modern mix-ins tie into healthier eating and drinking habits. Too many legacy brands like Mr. & Mrs. T’s Bloody Mary Mix or Jose Cuervo Margarita Mix are formulated with high fructose corn syrup, preservatives and artificial ingredients.

The simple syrups, extracts and bar mixers from Sonoma Syrup, on the other hand, feature real fruit juice, botanicals, hand-harvested vanilla bean pods and pure cane sugar, with no artificial flavors, colors, preservatives, corn syrup, fillers, GMO products or gluten.

“We have seen nice growth in the mixology channel with bars and home bar chefs,” said company founder Karin Campion.

“Since we use fresh organic mint, organic Meyer lemon peel, real pomegranate juice and organic lavender flowers, there’s this marvelous authentic, herbaceous flavor that is beautifully suited for the premium craft spirits that are popping up all over the country.”

And the more boutique, the better. Imbibers linger at Shed’s fermentation bar, enjoying quaffs like Shed mixologist Gillian Tyrnauer’s new ginger kombucha craft beer shandy, a craft cider shandy gussied with Seville orange bitters or a HomeFarm peach shrub spiked with Jardesca wine-based aperitif made from California grapes and locally-grown herbs.

Meanwhile, Underwood Bar and Bistro in Graton makes its own sweet–and-sour, rubbing it over vegetables for a cucumber julep, and accents its drinks with locally sourced clove-spiked lemon and honey.

The draw at Spoonbar in Healdsburg is the theatrically shaken cocktails that highlight homemade shrubs, uncommon herbs and fruit and vegetable extractions and infusions in drinks such as the gin and tonic. It’s mixed with Mendocino-made Fords Gin, cucumber, lemongrass, house-made tonic and carbonation from a high-tech, portable carbon dioxide system called a Perlini.

Still, the prize for mix-in mastery might go to The Alexander Valley Bar, situated behind the Medlock Ames tasting room in Healdsburg.

The team planted their own cocktail garden to feed the speakeasy drink menu with staples like licorice, cassis and Buddha’s hand citrus, while the drink scientists blend organic maple syrup, Angostura and fresh orange with homemade bacon bourbon for a truly crafty concoction called the Miss Piggy.