NEW YEAR, new cocktail. We're looking ahead, dying to discover what we'll be sipping in 2008. We went to Kevin Murphy, bar manager at Excelsior (272 Boylston Street, Boston, 617.426.7878), for answers.
Make-your-own mixers: "One of the best new trends with mixers is fresh. We're trying to do our best with it - we don't want to buy things, we don't want things frozen, we don't want somebody else to make it. We want to make it fresh here.
Cognac: "Not just cognacs as themselves anymore, but to actually mix cognacs into mixed cocktails. There's a lot of citrus already in the cognac as it is, so you can really complement that with some of your juices."
Old-world wines: "I see a lot of people moving away from their extreme love of California. They want to expand their palate to a lot of Old World wines, Bordeaux and things like that, that are not so much on the forefront in the wine community."
Good-for-you cocktails: "A lot of people are getting more healthy aspects, putting actual purées in their drinks."
Modern twists on the classics: "A lot of the classic cocktails are coming back for a new, younger generation that's never seen them. There's a fair amount of people who are actually making fun little twists on those drinks and bringing them back to a new age. Mixing them up with newer ingredients instead of the old. They're using orange flower water in certain drinks, but they're making it on their own now. They're not buying it from some guy who's been bottling it for 10,000 years."
Wines from South America: "South America, definitely, is coming up right now. I think that really started last year, but I think it could explode [in 2008]. I think South America's where it's at."
[Photo by Dejan Djordjevic]
