The New York Botanical Garden's annual Orchid Dinner took place at the Mandarin Oriental at Columbus Circle on February 10. In keeping with tradition, the evening featured large-scale orchid installations on its tabletops. One such arrangement, designed by Bowman Dahl Floral & Event Design, combined deep pink orchids with moss, twigs, and small white accent flowers.Â
Another arrangement featured white orchids in glass terrarium-like vessels with earthy accents of ferns and dirt. The designer was Ray Booth of McAlpine Booth & Ferrier Interiors.
Ethereal strings of white orchids cascaded above another table at the New York event. The arrangement, created by Anthony Brownie Flowers & Events, also had a ring of white orchids clustered at its base.
A particularly colorful display saw orchids sprouting out of paint cans, and linens had painterly designs. Roric Tobin designed the table for the high-end interior design firm Geoffrey Bradfield.
The Chicago Botanic Garden hosted a preview party for its Orchid Show on February 13. The evening's four-sided bar was positioned in the center of four giant planters with towering orchid displays.
Orchids were also used to garnish the fruity cocktails that the bartenders doled out that evening.
Event Creative handled decor for the evening and decorated tabletops with orchids in unusual holders—such as a piano-theme planter—instead of in traditional vases.
Culinary Landscape, the in-house caterer at the Chicago Botanic Garden, served shrimp and papaya salad on trays decorated with bright orchids.
Chicago catering firm Blue Plate is serving the inventive Into the Woods cocktail this season. The drink combines Reposado tequila and lemon with unusual ingredients including pecan-spiced maple syrup, port reduction, and 2010 Vintage Caramel Dream Pur-Eh tea. The garnish is fresh thyme.
Chicago-area restaurant House 406 serves a Box Lunch cocktail inspired by the school days. Made with dark chocolate, Licor 43, Galliano Ristretto, Thai coffee, and cream, the drink is served in a glass vessel that recalls a paper milk carton. Guests sip it through a striped straw.
The restaurant also serves a bright cocktail called the New York Delhi. The potent drink contains gin, pineapple juice, curried nectar, and—perhaps its most exotic ingredient of all—barbecue mist.
The St. Regis Aspen Resort serves ripe-for-the-season Marshmallow Cocktails. Flavors include candy apple with German apple liqueur; candy cane with peppermint schnapps; dipped strawberry with Godiva chocolate liqueur; and hot toddy with butterscotch schnapps and rum. The drinks are served in miniature martini glasses and presented in quartets.
Looking for a workday-friendly drink? Chicago restaurant Ruxbin serves house-made dry sodas in seasonal flavors such as Tamarind Apricot and Cranberry Ginger. Dry sodas are less sweet than more traditional sodas and are made with fresh ingredients and simple syrup.
The recently launched pilsner, which will be served at select Chicago-area restaurants including RPM Steak, has a unique brewing process during which Australian truffles are hand-shaved and incorporated into the mixture.
Dallas restaurant Oak has a whimsical drink called the State Fair. The cocktail, which combines pomegranate and lemon liqueurs with champagne, is topped with a stick of lime cotton candy that's made at the bar.
Toronto special events and catering firm Eatertainment adds an unusual—and visually appealing—garnish to its "Rolling Storm" martini. Made with Ramazzotti Black sambuca and Absolut Elyx vodka, the drink is topped with floating star anise.
There's also a unique garnish on the tropical-style "Toronto Sunset" cocktail. Containing grenadine, vodka, Malibu rum, and cranberry and pineapple juices, the festive drink is topped with a pineapple wheel and toasted coconut.
Highball & Harvest, the new restaurant at the Ritz Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes, serves an inventive cocktail called the Last Wish. The drink—served with an ice sphere holding a frozen orange peel—contains whiskey, spiced cola syrup, Old Havana tobacco bitters, and orange essence.
In Chicago, Rockit Burger Bar serves an unusually meaty drink. Combining spiced whiskey with Strongbow cider, Moose Drool brown ale, and Vermont maple syrup, the drink is garnished with a slice of bacon.
Miami catering and event firm Barton G. serves ceviche cocktails. Inspired by the Latin dish, the cocktail blends raw seafood with citrus and a dash of spirits. Guests sip the drink, which is typically paired with seafood-based appetizers.
Barton G. also serves Pop Shots, which are one-bite jello shots in mojito and kamikaze flavors.
Chicago's Entertaining Company has served its champagne intermezzo as a second course on an all-beverage menu. The treat contains coconut sorbetto with a champagne splash and is served over berry compote and fresh coconut moon chips.
Though it looks like a standard flavored martini, the Lychee Luxury Drop from Chicago restaurant Sunda has a spicy twist: a touch of wasabi. The drink also contains Absolut vodka, St. Germain liqueur, lemon juice, and lychee syrup.
For an update on a classic cocktail, the Lambs Club in New York serves a White Russian, Munich style. The restaurant’s cocktail historian and mixologist, Brian Van Flandern, ensures that the drink isn’t too sweet or too strong by recreating classic liqueurs instead of mixing something off the shelf. “We find a way to make everything fresh,” he says. “We make our own by adding vodka to espresso and a house-made bitter chocolate simple syrup blended with whole milk, which leads itself to a better tasting cocktail.”
The Rickey, a new lounge at Dream Midtown in New York, features a craft cocktail menu from mixologist Johnny Swet. Among the offerings is the Cartel, made with Sailor Jerry rum, pineapple, and cracked Colombian coffee bean, served with a coconut water ice block.
In New Orleans, the bakery and restaurant Willa Jean has a coffee program that includes coffee- and tea-inspired craft cocktails. Among them is the Afternoon Delight, which mixes Intelligentsia coffee with Tito’s Vodka, Licor 43, vanilla milk, and orange peel. The drink complements the Southern-tinged menu from chefs Kelly Fields and Lisa White; the restaurant is part of chef John Besh’s Besh Restaurant Group.
A new initiative at Wyndham Grand hotels focuses on cold-brew coffee, a method of coffee brewed with cold or room-temperature water that’s popular with discerning coffee drinkers. The “Brew Parlor” program features a menu of cold-brew cocktails from mixologist Ivy Mix and nonalcoholic drinks from chef Stephanie Izard. Among Mix’s creations is the “Initial Ascent” with bourbon, crème de cacao, lemon, framboise, and fresh raspberries.
Izard’s cold-brew mocktails include Five Spice Shaken Iced Coffee with Thai chili, cinnamon, clove, star anise, and sweetened condensed milk. Brew Parlor is an “amped-up happy hour,” as Mark Anderson, vice president of food and beverage for Wyndham Grand, called it during a preview event in New York. The program debuted in January in Chicago; Doha, Qatar; Shenzhen, China; and Istanbul, Turkey. It’s expected to roll out to the brand’s 33 properties globally by the end of the year.
For imbibers with a sweet tooth, Fixe in Austin, Texas, serves a coffee cocktail topped with shaved chocolate. Taylor’s Fin D'Noir features Godiva white chocolate liquor, frangelico, tellamore dew, wild cold-brew coffee, Storm King imperial stout, and fresh shaved chocolate.
The speakeasy-style bar Jimmy Chicago at the James Chicago hotel serves a seasonal specialty cocktail called Kentucky Coffee. A play on a mint julep, it’s made with Four Roses bourbon, Sparrow coffee, and mint whipped cream.
Cold-pressed coffee is the base of a drink called the “Last Man Standing” at the Betty in Chicago. It combines with Genever, Jamaican rum, oloroso sherry, whole egg, and nutmeg.
Juliet, an Italian eatery in Austin that opened last summer, serves two coffee cocktails. The Espresso Martini mixes coffee liqueur, Bailey’s, vodka, and espresso, and the Italian Coffee has espresso liqueur, amaretto, maraschino, and coffee, with whipped cream on top.
New to the winter cocktail menu at Austin smokehouse and beer garden Freedmen’s is the Molto Bella. The drink, served over ice, features Knob Creek rye, Fernet Branca, housemade chicory-coffee syrup, and chocolate bitters. Bar manager Brandon Garvey says the syrup—made with equal parts turbinado sugar and strongly brewed Cafe du Monde coffee—adds the right amount of sweetness.
For a tiki take on a coffee cocktail, Chicago’s Three Dots and a Dash developed a drink dubbed the "Cacchan Some Rays." It mixes cold-brew coffee with reposado tequila, dark Jamaican rum, overproof rum, passion fruit, lime, and pineapple.
