I popped into Komali late last week and pulled up a stool at their sleek and sprawling bar. It had been a long day, and I desperately needed sustenance, preferably in the form of fully-loaded queso fundido: melted Oaxaca and Chihuahua cheese with chorizo, poblano rajas, and roasted nopales. Oh, yes.
While sitting there, shoveling cheese onto warm corn tortillas, and flipping through the drink menu, I noticed a few new cocktails. “I just updated the menu last week,” bartender Leann Berry explained about the additions. “I kept everything on there, with the exception of the The Serrano Sandid….” It’s a summer cocktail that highlights watermelon. And while she can technically get her hands on the fruit any time of the year, she explained that it seems more “special” to have it seasonally.
The new cocktail menu includes something called the Smokin Buddies, made with Mestizo mezcal joven (unaged), Maestro Dobel tequila, Ancho Reyes liquor, and fresh lime juice; the El Chino with Mestizo mezcal resparado, Cointreau, peach bitters, basil, and fresh lime; the Orangetini with Cinco vodka, Cointreau, fresh blood orange juice, and lemon. But the drink that caught my eye was the Gin Lust made from Sloane’s Gin and “Leann’s lustful ingredients of the night.” That particular night it was cherries, thyme, and blood orange bitters. It was perfectly balanced, and most importantly, not too sweet.
There used to be a similar cocktail on the menu called Gin Love, made with gin, muddled grapefruit, and mint. But Berry explained that this specific drink has taken its place, and will change each week depending on which fruits are available, because “lust changes all the time.”
