SO YOU'VE had it with cocktail menus that read like Baskin Robbins's freezer case. You figure if it were a kiddie scoop you wanted on a sweltering summer's day, you'd get one; when it's time to chill with the grown-ups out on the terrace, though, your choice of refreshment had better reflect your mature tastes - no devil's food schnapps, no gummy-worm garnish. Besides, sugar triggers fatigue - the very opposite of refreshment.
Then again, Mary Poppins was an adult - a shrewd one at that, with apparently some medical training: she insisted that just a spoonful of sugar would help the medicine go down. Do you dare defy the authority of a nanny who can fly? Bottom line: maybe you can have your cake and drink it, too. That is to say, there are a few cocktails out there that are fun and new without being frou and frou, proving breezy rather than syrupy - that, in short, smack of summer vacation without reeking of high school.
Take the lemonade ($10) at Pigalle (75 Charles Street South, Boston, 617.423.4944). This ain't the kind of lemonade the neighborhood munchkins peddle at their creaky little card tables for 10 cents a pop. But gee, it'd be swell if they did: you could kill a whole batch with the pocket change in your lawnmower shorts. Certainly it goes down that easily, but eschewing all the tooth-grinding sugar of its namesake in favor of, oh yeah, alcohol. Indeed, a dash of kaffir-lime syrup lends just a soupçon of sweetness to what's otherwise a brisk, bubbly tonic of Absolut Citron, fresh lemon juice, and soda water. To get it, however, you're gonna have to strip off that sweaty wifebeater and slip into something befitting its elegance - at Pigalle's petite bar, you'll be clinking glasses with the well-heeled and acid-peeled, not knocking back Dixie cups with the high-topped and freckled.
Speaking of fresh faces: at the spanking-new Flat Iron Tapas Bar & Lounge (Bulfinch Hotel, 119 Merrimac Street, Boston, 617.778.2900), restaurant manager G. Tyler Titherington's own bubbly verve belies the sort of name you'd associate with some julep-quaffing, veranda-haunting Civil War general. Likewise, his signature drink forgoes cloying, old-fashioned romance for refreshing contemporary edge. Off-menu but always available, the Hot Cucumber ($12), according to one of Titherington's fledgling regulars, "is like drinking a salad that gives you a buzz." True, that, thanks to a combination of fresh-squeezed cucumber juice and Hendrick's gin, itself infused with cucumber and rose petals. A sprinkle of cayenne atop a float of three cuke coins adds kick, while spots of fresh lime juice and simple syrup soften the savory aspect.
Remember the Nestea plunge? You will when you take your first sip of the blackberry-spearmint mojito ($8.50) at LTK (225 Northern Avenue, Boston, 617.330.7430). Well, perhaps what it evokes is not so much a plunge as a frolic through some garden patch. That's because it's practically bursting with whole blackberry brambles and mint sprigs muddled with lime juice just long enough to release their juices - meaning plenty of bits and pieces remain to make a toothy grin a big mistake, even if the slug of Cruzan black-cherry rum they're mixed with (in a pint glass, no less) gets you sufficiently giddy for flirtation's sake.
Likewise light and juicy, not jammy, is the super-loose interpretation of sangria at Bouchée (159 Newbury Street, Boston, 617.450.4343) - called, helpfully enough, Bouchée Sangria ($11), since you might not otherwise make the connection. After all, it contains no still wine, no brandy, and no sliced fruit. What it does contain, however, renders it every bit as festive as its Spanish inspiration: Stoli Blueberi and Massenez Crème de Mure Wild Blackberry pack a succulent punch, which cranberry juice and a splash of Moët & Chandon Nectar Imperial balance with tartness and dryness. Grab a glass out on the brasserie's sweet little sunken patio for the full escapist effect.
Its two-story picture windows and patio lie within feet - hell, toes - of the Charles; its bar crowd ebbs, flows, and (particularly after a round or two) sparkles like the river itself. During a sunlit happy hour, Dante (Royal Sonesta Hotel, 40 Edwin H. Land Boulevard, Cambridge, 617.497.4200) resembles summer personified - er, place-ified. Not to mention drinkified. Case in point: the muscat grape martini ($11). Though white grape juice predominates, it doesn't overwhelm; by virtue (or vice, as the case may be) of its generous pour of Ciroc vodka, the drink remains surprisingly crisp, aided further by aloe vera juice - which tastes the way you'd expect the nectar of a flowering succulent to taste, fresh and light. (If you're curious - and lucky - sociable bartender E. K. Greene may treat you to a sample glass.) And check out the cheeky garnish of frozen grapes; it's as though your classic olives have magically transformed into popsicle chunks. After devouring them, you'll swear off forever those heavy-handed concoctions that a teen might whip up between raids on the ice-cream truck and mom's liquor cabinet. (At least in public, that is.) @
