Scotch Purists Beware

By JONATHAN MILES
Published: January 13, 2008

THE first time I visited the restaurant Shorty’s.32, acting on a tip about a new single-malt Scotch cocktail, the bartender turned me down. No such drink on the menu, he claimed.


Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times
ALL DRESSED UP A single malt in a cocktail may turn some heads.
Had I, like a fisherman late for the mayfly hatch, already missed it? No, he assured me. He’d been manning the bar at Shorty’s, a dark and diminutive American bistro on the upper fringe of SoHo, since its opening in October and never once had he mixed a Scotch drink.

“Most people,” he said, gesturing to a companion of mine down the bar nursing a bourbon on the rocks, “drink their Scotch that way.”

Indeed they do. As a Scottish proverb says: “There are two things a Highlander likes naked, and one of them is malt whiskey.” But we New Yorkers are islanders, not Highlanders, and adulteration befits us. Case in point: the Sweet Solera, the single-malt cocktail I was hunting (prematurely, as it turned out) on my first trip to Shorty’s. It’s listed on the chalkboard menu now, a new but secure addition. And, unless you really are a Highlander, it’s worth seeking out.

A mixture of Glenfiddich 15-Year-Old Solera Reserve, Lillet Rouge, and a winsome dash of caramel syrup, and bespangled with a maraschino cherry, the Sweet Solera is a cousin to a Rob Roy, meaning it’s kin to a Manhattan. That is to say, it comes from a good family. While the root beer-y sweetness of the Lillet Rouge and caramel blunt the rugged, smoky edges of the Scotch, the peatiness still comes rumbling through. It takes more than a cherry to tame a single malt.

Yet Scotch connoisseurs might reasonably ask: Why even try? “Single malts have such a specific flavor profile, so it’s difficult to argue why you would want to mess with that,” said Charlotte Voisey, a “brand ambassador” at William Grant & Sons, Glenfiddich’s parent company. Ms. Voisey is adept at making that argument, however — Shorty’s Sweet Solera happens to be her creation. She chose a single malt rather than a blended, because, she said, it brings a “very pure and singular flavor” to the drink.

“Certainly, eyebrows have been raised,” she admitted. “But a cocktail, in and of itself, isn’t a means of disguising the base flavor. It’s a means of showcasing that flavor and exploring how else it can be enjoyed.”

It’s also a means of cracking the perception that single-malt Scotches are designed for rich old men to sip, neat or on the rocks, after a round of golf or a corporate merger or both, a stereotype Ms. Voisey is eager to dispel. “Cocktails are supposed to be fun,” she said.

Even — raised, white-tufted eyebrows aside — single-malt cocktails.

SWEET SOLERA Adapted From Shorty’s.32

1 1/4ounces Glenfiddich Solera Reserve Scotch

¾ ounce Lillet Rouge

½ ounce Monin caramel syrup

1 maraschino cherry, for garnish.

Stir all liquid ingredients with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass or an ice-filled rocks glass. Garnish with the cherry.

Yield: 1 serving

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