La Sabina Morada

Sarah Block

“Inspiration comes from a cocktail I had in Oaxaca, Mexico,” says Sarah Block, Bar Manager for J & Tony’s Discount Cured Meats and Negroni Warehouse. A well-traveled colleague recommended visiting a bar called Sabina Sabe during her trip south. “So I went there and had a really refreshing, delicious hibiscus spritz of some sort.” Because she was “in full vacation mode,” she didn’t even think about asking for the recipe, “so after the fact, I had to reverse engineer it. And what I came up with is La Sabina Morada.”

She describes her version as tasting “bright and citrus-driven. You get a little bit of that floral aspect from the hibiscus itself. But it’s mostly bright, tart, and refreshing.” The first step toward achieving what the menu calls “hibiscus magic” is steeping hibiscus tea, which they source locally from Cafe Moto. “I try not to over-sweeten the tea, because I don’t want to throw off that balance. The more sugary content is gonna come from Aperol.”

Block continues breaking it down: “And really nice mezcal, so you have an underlying smoke component. Tajin gives it a little spice; we doctor ours up with salt and Old Bay Seasoning for a little extra flavor. Bubbles give it effervescence; using prosecco helps lessen the residual sugar aspect. That’s all there is to it,” she finishes. “Layers, but not overly complicated — just hitting a lot of those spots on the palate.”

She says the mezcal, Davino Maguey, plays well with other ingredients. “It’s a really affordable mezcal without being too much in any kind of direction — the smoke isn’t super overpowering, it doesn’t have too much of those grassy notes, or spice, or anything like that. It’s a pretty even-keeled mezcal.”

“Aperol,” Block notes, “even as recognizable and approachable as it is for a lot of people, still falls under that apéritif category. So definitely citrusy, orange-y, but there is that bitter component to it as well. Again, that just hits one of the spots on the palate.” By adding an amaro spin to the reinvented recipe, even one as light as Aperol, Block upholds J & Tony’s European-inspired concept of an aperitivo-style bar. “We do like to incorporate amaro in some regard with any of our cocktails. That’s just our bread and butter. At the core of it, we’re an amaro and Negroni bar,” she explains. “We like to be a gateway for people experiencing amaro or bitter liqueurs, or just new spirits that they might not see very often.”

J and Tony's

• J & Tony’s
• La Sabina Morada
• 1 oz Aperol
• .75 oz lime juice
• .75 oz mezcal
• .5 oz hibiscus tea
• 1 oz prosecco

For the Hibiscus tea: steep two cups of hibiscus in six cups of hot water for 10 minutes. Strain and add 60 grams of sugar, then strain through a sieve and cheese cloth. For the cocktail: shake everything in a tin, strain over a large ice rock, then top with prosecco. Garnish with a lime wheel and a tajin rim.