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Drinks All Around: Leila's Camel Clutch
Tehran goes full tiki at Consortium Holdings' latest
Bartender Dylanna Miller, plus just enough decor in the background to whet your whistle.
Leila is Consortium Holdings’ newest project, the 22nd or so depending on how you count the local food and drink juggernaut’s various establishments within the Lafayette Hotel. It looks stupendous, having executed construction of a miniature world to a Disney or even Vegas degree. If you plan to visit, I would recommend doing yourself a favor by avoiding any images beforehand. Let yourself be surprised.
To that end, I'll spare you any significant attempt at description, except to say that, like its menu, Leila’s aesthetic is one of unapologetic exoticism — a riot of Middle Eastern influences with a modern twist. The decor includes fire, lanterns, rocks, and a night sky. There is more color and pattern in here than there is in all the other buildings on the block put together. I’ll leave it at that. Get yourself there and take it in fresh. In our era, when we can get an internet preview of most any experience; why not spice up your life a bit and go in blind?
Speaking of spice…my bartender here, Dylana Miller, suggests I try a drink she describes as a “tiki-style spice bomb” called the Camel Clutch. The cocktail list, which features impressionistic blurbs about each cocktail, says of this one: “TEHRAN GOES FULL TIKI. LIFE AFTER DEATH." I like that, and it’s the drink that I’ll be trying, but I do want to pause a moment to mention some of the blurbs for other drinks on the menu. “THINK MINTEAPALMTREES." “SLIGHTLY DIRTY. VERY HABIBI." “WHITE RUSSIAN ON A MAGIC CARPET RIDE."
Miller talks me through the ingredients of the Camel Clutch. First, a housemade pomegranate tonic, which is made with cinchona bark and other ingredients that cannot be revealed. There is also a pre-batched Walnut falernum, which is a mixture of walnut, cinnamon sticks, and “some other stuff," cooked into an “orgeat-type syrup” that is mixed with falernum liqueur. (At home, you might sub in some store-bought variants of orgeat and falernum or make your own, if you’re feeling adventurous.) Some grapefruit and lime. A pre-batched rum mixture of JM Rhum Agricole and Jamaican Rum — Smith and Cross, I believe. Angostura bitters. Finally, Arak — they have several brands of the grape-and-anise liquor here, but this particular drink is made with Layla, distilled here in California.
Into a shaker, pour:
1 oz. pomegranate tonic (get creative and make your own!)
¾ oz walnut falernum
¾ oz grapefruit juice
¾ oz lime juice
1.5 oz rum mixture (1 oz rhum agricole to 0.5 oz Jamaican Rum)
1 dash angostura bitters
2 dashes arak (from a bitters bottle)
To blend Leila’s bar gives it a whirl in a Hamilton Beach shake mixer, but Miller says you could replace that with a good whip shake. Throw in a generous ice cube and give it “a long, hard shake to get a level of dilution and frothiness."
Here's something you might be interested in.
Drinks All Around: Leila's Camel Clutch
Tehran goes full tiki at Consortium Holdings' latest
Drinks All Around: Leila's Camel Clutch
Tehran goes full tiki at Consortium Holdings' latest
Bartender Dylanna Miller, plus just enough decor in the background to whet your whistle.
Leila is Consortium Holdings’ newest project, the 22nd or so depending on how you count the local food and drink juggernaut’s various establishments within the Lafayette Hotel. It looks stupendous, having executed construction of a miniature world to a Disney or even Vegas degree. If you plan to visit, I would recommend doing yourself a favor by avoiding any images beforehand. Let yourself be surprised.
To that end, I'll spare you any significant attempt at description, except to say that, like its menu, Leila’s aesthetic is one of unapologetic exoticism — a riot of Middle Eastern influences with a modern twist. The decor includes fire, lanterns, rocks, and a night sky. There is more color and pattern in here than there is in all the other buildings on the block put together. I’ll leave it at that. Get yourself there and take it in fresh. In our era, when we can get an internet preview of most any experience; why not spice up your life a bit and go in blind?
Speaking of spice…my bartender here, Dylana Miller, suggests I try a drink she describes as a “tiki-style spice bomb” called the Camel Clutch. The cocktail list, which features impressionistic blurbs about each cocktail, says of this one: “TEHRAN GOES FULL TIKI. LIFE AFTER DEATH." I like that, and it’s the drink that I’ll be trying, but I do want to pause a moment to mention some of the blurbs for other drinks on the menu. “THINK MINTEAPALMTREES." “SLIGHTLY DIRTY. VERY HABIBI." “WHITE RUSSIAN ON A MAGIC CARPET RIDE."
Miller talks me through the ingredients of the Camel Clutch. First, a housemade pomegranate tonic, which is made with cinchona bark and other ingredients that cannot be revealed. There is also a pre-batched Walnut falernum, which is a mixture of walnut, cinnamon sticks, and “some other stuff," cooked into an “orgeat-type syrup” that is mixed with falernum liqueur. (At home, you might sub in some store-bought variants of orgeat and falernum or make your own, if you’re feeling adventurous.) Some grapefruit and lime. A pre-batched rum mixture of JM Rhum Agricole and Jamaican Rum — Smith and Cross, I believe. Angostura bitters. Finally, Arak — they have several brands of the grape-and-anise liquor here, but this particular drink is made with Layla, distilled here in California.
Into a shaker, pour:
1 oz. pomegranate tonic (get creative and make your own!)
¾ oz walnut falernum
¾ oz grapefruit juice
¾ oz lime juice
1.5 oz rum mixture (1 oz rhum agricole to 0.5 oz Jamaican Rum)
1 dash angostura bitters
2 dashes arak (from a bitters bottle)
To blend Leila’s bar gives it a whirl in a Hamilton Beach shake mixer, but Miller says you could replace that with a good whip shake. Throw in a generous ice cube and give it “a long, hard shake to get a level of dilution and frothiness."
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