Tuesday, November 18, 2025
This holiday season, we asked local restaurants to give us their favorite bourbon (in honor of our November cover story) or champagne recipe. Here’s what we got. Grab your ingredients and get to shaking, stirring and sipping this Thanksgiving. Cheers!
Martin’s Tavern’s “Where the Flowers Bloom”
A simple, elegant twist on a classic champagne cocktail.
-½ oz hibiscus syrup
-Top with your favorite champagne in a flute
-Garnish with a single hibiscus flower in the glass
Chez Billy Sud’s “Cloture en Pierre“
-1 oz Bourbon
-.5 oz Liquore delle Sirene (or something similar like Suze)
-.25 oz honey syrup
-2-3 dashes Angostura bitters
-Sparkling cider
-Build in double rocks glass. Add ice and cider, stir. Garnish with rosemary sprig.
L’Avant Garde’s “Old Fashioned au Canard”
A sophisticated winter twist on a timeless classic. This luxurious cocktail blends duck fat–washed bourbon and cognac with a touch of orange marmalade and bitters, finished under a wisp of applewood smoke. The result is rich, velvety, and decadently aromatic, just like the holidays by the crackling fireplace at L’Avant-Garde, Georgetown.
-3 oz Duck fat washed bourbon (1.5 oz) and cognac (1.5 oz)
-0.5 oz orange marmalade
-2 dashes of old-fashioned bitters
-2 dashes of walnut bitter
-Finished with applewood smoke
Bourbon Steak’s “Yo, You Got Beef?”
Courtesy Bourbon Steak.
The Yo, You Got Beef?! offers a spin to the Manhattan while highlighting two Bourbon Steak signatures: whiskey and steak. The bourbon is fat-washed with A5 Wagyu tallow, which adds a savory depth that can also be achieved at home with wagyu tallow from specialty grocers or online. Just before serving, the glass is smoked tableside with wood chips, adding a nutty, grilled flavor that nods to the restaurant’s wood-burning grill and also feels tailor-made for the cooler weather. Finished in a chilled coupe glass with a simple orange twist, it’s a refined yet approachable cocktail that brings steakhouse flavors into a fall-ready drink.
Ingredients:
2 oz. Wagyu-fat washed bourbon (see recipe below)
1 oz. sweet vermouth
2 dashes spice tincture
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Wagyu-fat washed bourbon recipe:
-Render 150 grams of wagyu or beef fat/tallow over low heat and separate the solids from the liquids using a strainer or cheesecloth
-Discard the solids
-Mix the rendered fat with one 750ml bottle of bourbon and let the mixture sit in the freezer for 2 hours
-Once the fat freezes to the top, separate the solids from the liquid using cheesecloth and use the washed bourbon
Directions:
Combine all of the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice.
Stir for 30-45 seconds, until chilled and combined.
Strain the cocktail into a chilled coupe glass.