Last week, hundreds of people lined up around the block at East Side bar Whisler’s to try the cheapest drink currently available in Austin: a 75-cent martini. Every Friday this summer from 4 to 7 p.m., the craft cocktail bar is serving up straight, dirty, espresso, and cosmo martinis at prices you’d never get without making a deal with the devil.
But Whistler says it was kindness, not the devil, that drove the deal.
“This is an act of love,” says William Schweigert, the bar’s creative beverage director, “We’re extending a hand of reconciliation so that people who are still in the city can go and enjoy one of the best bars.”
And if last week’s lines were any indication, Austin is grateful for it. But this crazy deal may not just be the product of owner Scranton Toohey’s good intentions. It was also a way to banish the summer blues, a chance to spice up staff and the industry during a notoriously slow period for the city’s bars and restaurants.
Plus, the Martini’s Italian roots fit well with the new summer drinks menu theme: “Italian Pop.”
The new menu debuts on the Thursday of the summer solstice, and Schweigert describes it with philosophical reverence. “It’s like walking out of a bar at 4am on holiday and the stones are wet and you can smell the history and all the flavours are really intense.” He’s talking about the drinks menu, and you might mistake his glowing praise for poetry. Given this summer’s menu, it’s easy to get confused. teeth A poem, a sonnet of 14 lines to be exact.
Each line tries to evoke a feeling associated with the corresponding drink. For example, in line 9, “Buongiorno, Bambina” is a clarified brandy with tomatoes, strawberries, peppers and amaro, topped with salty stracciatella foam. Three lines below, “whispering clandestina:” is a clarified tequila with raspberries, rose petals and vermouth, topped with ramazzotti and espresso foam. It doesn’t look like anything you’d expect from a craft cocktail: a lilac-pink base with a dusty brown espresso foam contrasting it. But it tastes like a raspberry chocolate bar, with the earthiness of the espresso foam balancing the fruitiness of the base drink.
The bar’s seasonal menus, which change every three months, are the result of hard work, creativity and collaboration among the staff. Each menu aims to be more than just a menu. “The goal of a cocktail bar is to tell a story, not just have drinks,” Schweigert says. “There’s something to be read on the menu, so if it was just a drinks list it would be almost a waste.
Past menu themes have centred around the idea of ”revolution”, combining political posters with classic cocktails with a “revolutionary” twist, or a completely fictional story about a botanist’s diary that was supposedly found during the renovation of Whistler’s outdoor area. Each drink is inspired by a fictional flower and the story of the botanist who encountered it.
If the 75-cent martinis aren’t enough to satisfy you, Schweigert touts that this summer’s menu is the best he’s had since joining Whistler’s. “I can tell you, every drink is going to be amazing,” he says.
If this doesn’t erase your summer blues, what will?
