This past Wednesday, Totcycle and I managed to peddle our way up to the Pour House during drinking hours, though, and officially kicked off our long-ago promised touring review of Wallingford bloody marys.
The Pour House bloody mary is a good, meaty drink: the alcohol is fully cloaked by tomato and spice flavor, so it’s easy to forget they’re not stingy with the vodka. There’s clearly a heavy hand on the tabasco, as befits a drink intended to clear the clouds the prior evening’s excesses, and enough Worcestershire sauce to round out the flavor.
While our bartender, Ryan, was tight-lipped when it came to the recipe for the bloody mary, he was more forthcoming on the other drinks he poured us. Totcycle has a soft-spot for blender drinks, and isn’t ashamed to admit it, so we were expecting something sweet and slushy when he put himself in Ryan’s hands. Instead, two absolute gems.
We were sure that our taste buds would have been burnt dull from the gusto of the bloody mary, but the Hot Charlotte cut right through it. Cool, sharp, slightly spicy, thirst-quenching. Hendrick’s gin, St Germaine (an elderflower liquor from the alps), tabasco, muddled cucumber, and ginger ale served in a tumbler.
There’s a very luck girl out there somewhere named Katie Anne. For our next round, Ryan served up a home grown concoction named for his sweetheart: Hendrick’s gin, St Germaine, orange flower water, fresh lemon, grapefruit, and prosecco. Similar to the Hot Charlotte, but the grapefuit gives it more of a tang as compared to the soothing, soft cucumber in the Hot Charlotte.
Honestly, though, we’ve got a tart tooth, so the show stealer was the garnish on the bloody mary: dill sea beans. Sea beans, we learned, are similar to string beans, except they grow in salt water marshes and along beaches. Pickled for three months, munched for several glorious minutes. Worth the price of the drink by themselves.
(Bloody Mary pictured is a stock photo)
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Did I say blender drinks? I thought it was “girly drinks” … either way I wounding drinking something named after the bartender’s girlfriend in a cosmo glass. And I’m still worried that a “Hot Charlotte” is some sort of frat innuendo. But delicious innuendo it was.
We love the Pour House: great food and drinks, very friendly service and the perfect location! The spring rolls and salmon sandwich are our favorites. You can’t go wrong with the menu though.