Sea Island Life Magazine Fall/Winter 2014 | Page 60

Bluecoat or Nolet’s, and instead of Campari,
I’ll use Aperol or Amaro Nonino.”
The Manhattan cocktail is another favorite.
In the South, Woodford Reserve bourbon is
often the spirit of choice instead of the original rye. “We’ll [use] bourbon as much as we
can,” Zeagler says. In one version, the drink
is also brightened with an infusion of lemon
verbena, and another recipe melds rye with a
savory sherry gastrique.
Jessica Zigman, head bartender at Tavola
on Sea Island, has similar experience reinis stocked with Italian spirits that pair exceptionally well with the restaurant’s Italian fare.
If a customer orders a Negroni, she would
serve it with Giulio Cocchi’s Barolo Chinato
“to take it to the next level.”
In an Aperol Spritz, she might pair club
Cappelletti Aperitivo Americano Rosso instead
of the cocktail’s namesake liqueur. “There’s
a huge drive for classic cocktails,” Zigman
explains. “Everyone has their own take on
what’s traditional, and we use those as the
guidelines to create cocktails that are unique
but all stem from the original,” she says.
These examples of clever substitution mirror Simonson’s thoughts on changes behind

the bar. “Mixologists, excited over rediscovering their profession as a craft, [started]
inventing new cocktails,” he says. “Since
all the great combinations were created a
century or more ago, this meant increasingly complicated mixtures, with six or seven
ingredients, or drinks that depended on
involved processes, like infusions, housemade bitters, shrubs and fat-washed spirits.
This was novel for a while, but soon some
drinkers—and truthfully, some bartenders,
too—began to long for simpler times and
simpler drinks.”
The Old-Fashioned is an example of a basic
began appearing on menus only in the last
few years,” Simonson says of the cocktail. “Its
template of spirits, water, bitters and sugar
also allows bartenders to be creative without
straying too far from the rulebook. You can
play around with the sweetener, the bitters,
even the spirit. It won’t be the Old-Fashioned,
but will be a recognizable descendant.”
For the fall, Zeagler already has her eye
on making an Old-Fashioned sweetened with
interest in using homemade products isn’t
unusual among bartenders who want to be
creative with the sources of their spirits.

Mark Allen at Lazy Guy Distillery

GEORGIA-MADE

DAWSONVILLE MOONSHINE
DISTILLERY: Dawson County is
said to have been the moonshine
capital of the world. Now, Cheryl
Wood continues the tradition
with Dawsonville Moonshine
Distillery, which operates
under Free Spirits distillery,
inspired by her moonshiner
grandfather, Simmie Free. The
master distiller for the operation,
Dwight “Punch” Bearden,
comes from four generations of
putting back-woods Appalachia
into liquid form. All the spirits
use local corn and apples.
(dawsonvillemoonshine
distillery.com)
GEORGIA DISTILLING CO.:
Whiskey is the focus of Shawn

Hall and Bill Maudlin’s Georgia
Distilling Co., just outside
Milledgeville. Their doublebarreled Doc Holliday Rye is
made with grains sourced from
the Georgia foothills.
(georgiadistilling.com)

LAZY GUY DISTILLERY: In
downtown Kennesaw, tech
entrepreneur Mark Allen opened
the whiskey-centric Lazy Guy
Distillery. The highlight? The
General, a 151-proof four-grain
corn whiskey.
(lazyguydistillery.com)
OLD FOURTH DISTILLERY: This
Atlanta newcomer \