Brandy Crusta

Anthony Schmidt

“All the drinks from the Lobby Bar are a slight twist on classic New Orleans,” says Anthony Schmidt, Beverage Director for The Lafayette. And the Brandy Crusta is a no-brainer for this particularly warm day. “Whereas typically a Brandy Crusta would be served shaken and up with an elongated orange twist, this one is a little bit different. We serve it over shaved ice, so it kind of turns into this unique new texture, like a slushie made almost à la minute.”

According to Schmidt, the original recipe calls for a sugar rim to balance the dryness, but his version has a more luscious, decadent finish. “Essentially, a traditional Brandy Crusta uses just a single curaçao. Here, we’re blending a couple of different styles to create this signature flavor, between the kumquat and our house curaçao. It’s actually a curaçao that we manipulate a little bit — we add a little touch of calamansi extract.”

The drink has a blend of brandy as well, “so instead of it just being a single version of brandy, we’re doing cognac and apple brandy.” He likes Clear Creek’s two-year aged apple brandy for this drink. “A little bit of age on the brandy is important. It kind of rounds it, makes it a little more soft, approachable, easy drinking.”

“When you combine those ideas,” Schmidt continues, “it’s gonna lend itself toward a more tropical presentation. We’re gonna drive that even farther when we use our passion fruit syrup in addition to this. Really, what we wanted it to be is one foot in ‘traditional’ and another foot in ‘tropical’ — and also inherently new, by way of the granita service.”

That’s where the shaved ice came into play. “We hadn’t used the machine before, and we were imagining ourselves in this hot box atrium, and this felt more festive, appropriate, and exciting, because we hadn’t done something like it before,” Schmidt recalls. “When it’s served, you’ll get a glass of shaved ice and the bartender will pour a blended cocktail over the top of it, and it immediately melts into a texture that’s somewhere between pebble ice and shaved ice. Ice that you can chew on, but it’s kind of like snow.”

Time is somewhat of the essence, but only somewhat. “You kind of want to enjoy it relatively soon… but it still holds that slush, that granita texture, quite stable. You don’t have to rush to enjoy it. It drinks like a drink.”

Lobby Bar at The Lafayette

THE LAFAYETTE LOBBY BAR’S

BRANDY CRUSTA

.75 oz lemon

.5 oz passion fruit syrup

.75 oz Cointreau

.25 oz kumquat liqueur

.75 oz Clear Creek Apple Brandy

1 oz Park Cognac VSOP

.25 oz simple syrup

.75 oz shaved ice

Add all ingredients except ice to a shaking tin and set aside. Then follow the directions on your shaver to make .75 - 1 oz of shaved ice and place into your favorite coupe. Quickly shake the ingredients in your tin, and slowly pour over the shaved ice. You will notice the ice start to melt down and dilute your cocktail. Garnish with your favorite edible flower — cheers!