Drink 34: The Clue Junior Drinks (Part II)

The Name: Mr. Green with the Lemonade                                                                                

The Bar: The Narrows (1037 Flushing Ave., Brooklyn NYC)

The Story Behind The Name: This is part two of my "Clue Junior" series of drinks. To read why I think a simple board game like Clue Junior is ridiculous enough to warrant a place on this blog, please read part one here. Then come back and see how the second Clue Junior cocktail stacked up to the first.

Well, Yvette's dead. But before we deal with this we NEED to figure out who ate that slice of cake. Priorities, people.

Ordering The Drink:  After leaving Skytown, Elizabeth and I made it to a restaurant called BeeHive Oven and had some delicious Southern comfort food. This is irrelevant to the cocktails, but I mention it because the food there was really delicious. And biscuit-based, like another restaurant I've visited.

Here's a thing about me: I will talk about biscuits as much as I possibly can.

After our biscuits, Elizabeth and I journeyed to a bar called The Narrows. When I had googled the best bars in Bushwick, this place consistently came up as having the best cocktails, so I was very much looking forward to it. Unfortunately, our unfamiliarity with the area meant we got a little bit lost and almost gave up and went to a different bar instead. But I'm glad we stuck it out because as soon as we walked into The Narrows it became clear that this place was serious about its cocktails. Fancy cocktail equipment lined the bar and it was an absolute pleasure to watch the two guys at the bar work. They knew what they were doing. Since we'd already had two drinks, Elizabeth and I weren't particularly interested in getting multiple rounds here, and initially were planning to just order a Clue Junior-themed drink and call it a night, but the house cocktails all sounded so appealing we had to get one of those. We settled on a rye-based cocktail called Caulfield's Dream. Because it was made with rye. As in the Catcher in the Rye. As in Holden Caulfield. As in Caulfield's Dream. Get it?!?! Unable to resist literary references, we got a Caulfield's Dream, and of course, one of the Clue Junior drinks. All we needed was a suspect, so I mixed up the cards and we ended up selecting...Mr. Green! So, the cocktail was officially going to be called the Mr. Green with the Lemonade (since I used cola in the first Clue Junior drink). I was glad to have picked Mr. Green, as I've had success with green drinks before. I asked our bartender (an affable guy named Chris) if he'd be willing to make this drink, and after a slightly hesitant chuckle, he responded, "I'm up to the challenge."

Outside The Narrows, I mimic Mr. Green's scared-shitless-yet-also-bored expression on the card.

I go to all sorts of bars for this blog. Some are sports bars, some are great neighborhood places, and some really specialize in cocktails. The Narrows fits in that latter category, and unsurprisingly, these types of bars are typically the ones who typically come up with the best drinks. It makes sense--if you specialize in cocktails, your bartender is going to be more versatile than those who mostly serve beer (although, I should mention that surprisingly for a cocktail bar, The Narrows actually featured a pretty great craft beer menu). The bartenders know more tricks, and have more ingredients and equipment at their disposal. But, there's another trend I've noticed at these cocktail bars which I think contributes greatly to the success of the drinks. If there's more than one person tending bar that night, at the really good cocktail bars, the bartender always consults the rest of the team before making my custom drink. It becomes a team effort, and the drink is always stronger for it. It's always fun to see, and to me, demonstrates that the bartender is getting into the spirit of the game. This happened at The Narrows. Chris and his fellow bartender consulted for a bit before Chris set about making the drink. He shook up the cocktail, and had his fellow bartender give it a taste. "I was thinking about adding..." he started to say, but he was cut off. "It's really good, man," his fellow bartender said, "don't add a thing."

So he didn't. And the Mr. Green with the Lemonade was served.

The Drink:

Green Chartreuse
Yellow Chartreuse
Lemon Juice
Lime Juice

Assessment of Drink: Chris' fellow bartender was right. He didn't have to add a thing. This drink was excellent-- incredibly refreshing and bracing, it had a bold flavor that was instantly addictive and which stayed on your tongue far after the drink was done. It was brilliant. It tasted like the best lemonade I've ever had. This is a drink I would return to a bar for.

The drink had a lot of citrus, and that's where its success lay. Any chef will tell you that the best way to enhance the flavor of a dish is to add acidity--the acids brighten up the dish in a way that other flavor enhancers, like salt, simply cannot. Lemon and lime are some of the best sources of acid you can find, and as such prominent ingredients here, the cocktail was wonderfully vibrant. The citrus was especially skillful in enhancing the flavor of the chartreuse. It was a risky move to use the two kinds of chartreuse as the only alcohol in the cocktail. An aromatic liqueur, chartreuse is typically used as an accent, and doesn't really carry a cocktail the way something like, say, whiskey or gin can. But, here, it worked because of the balance that Chris achieved between the two chartreuses (the yellow variety tends to be sweeter, while the green is stronger and spicier) and the two citrus juices. Chris wouldn't tell me what was in it until after I'd tried it, and after my first taste, I asked him if there was basil in it. I was, of course, wrong, but after hearing the ingredients I understand why I was thrown. Chartreuse is distilled from herbs, and the acidity of the cocktail brought that herbaceous flavor to the forefront. It ended up having a somewhat earthy flavor, and lent itself to a more savory flavor profile than one would expect. Everything was in perfect proportion--the acid from the citrus was prominent without being abrasive, and the chartreuse was a subtle and strong addition. It was a perfect summer drink.

Seriously, everything was great. Even the texture was good--there were still little crystals of ice floating in the drink from after Chris shook it, which added an extra dimension to enjoying the drink and contributed to how refreshing the cocktail tasted. As we talked, it was clear that Chris was proud of his drink, as well he should have been. I never would have guessed he'd invented it on the spot--it tasted like a tried and true signature cocktail. And that's due entirely to Chris' skill.

Mr. Green, resting in front of his very own lemonade! Just like mama used to make! If mama made really good cocktails.

To compare it to the first drink in this Clue Junior series, I really liked the Miss Scarlet with the Cola, and Skytown is a bar I would definitely return to with a few friends for a great night out. But, if I'm going to a bar specifically for a cocktail, The Narrows wins hands down. The technical precision of these cocktails is just so on point. When giving me the ingredients, Chris actually included the exact measurements for each ingredient (I stupidly forgot to write them down, but I do remember that there was 3/4 of an ounce of both varieties of chartreuse). For anyone who thinks that cocktails are just combining ingredients, try to make the Mr. Green with the Lemonade for yourself. In layman's hands, this combination of ingredients would not work as successfully. But, with someone who knows how to handle them, and who understands the ins and outs of mixology, they sing. Should I ever find myself in Bushwick again, I know I'll be returning to The Narrows to try more of their signature drinks.

Also, I should mention that both this cocktail and the Caulfield's Dream (which was also excellent, by the way, but Elizabeth and I both actually preferred Chris' spontaneous creation) were $10. At the other bars of this quality that I've been to, these drinks would be anywhere between $14 and $20. So, not only does The Narrows offer great drinks, it's a really great value, and definitely one of my new favorite bars that I've visited for this blog.

Does It Live Up To The Name: Yes! I already said that this tasted like the best lemonade I've ever had, so even though it used lemon juice and not lemonade (which do taste drastically different) some combination of the ingredients created the effect of lemonade (memo to self: would The Lemonade Effect be a good name for a drink on this blog?) Even though there was lime juice in this drink as well, the lemon definitely was the stronger flavor, with the lime adding a certain sharpness that the lemon couldn't have provided on its own.

All this leaves is the green part. The cocktail actually green. A very light green, but undeniably green. It was light enough that it was actually hard to get a picture of it. In the picture above, the lighting kind of washes out the green accents. It's not great, but here's the picture I got of the drink that best showed the drink's color. Even here, it's hard to see, but I promise you it was green.

The green was not as prominent as it would have been if Chris had included creme de menthe or absinthe. I obviously have no complaints about this drink, but I was initially hoping for an absinthe drink--after 34 drinks for this blog, I STILL have only gotten one cocktail with absinthe in it! How is this possible?! But, it was still green enough to qualify for the name. Hey, the fact that it has green chartreuse in it at all would have meant this cocktail met that requirement. So, green? Check. Lemonade? Check? Mr. Green with the Lemonade? Check check check!

All in all, I'd say that my Clue cocktail endeavor was a rousing success. And there was not a single drink with mustard in it!

Now, if only I knew where that pesky slice of cake got to. Get out the police tape and seal off the exits, boys. We've got a mystery on our hands!