Call them beverage managers, mixologists or even bar chefs. Just don’t call them bartenders.

Gourmet cocktail creators all over the Hudson Valley are squeezing juice from Meyer lemons, macerating pears, pureeing white peaches and muddling herbs like cilantro, mint and basil.

A clumsily poured Jack and Coke can still be had at your local hole-in-the-wall. But if your taste buds are piqued by a classic Sidecar updated with a fresh ginger infusion, head to Twist restaurant in Hyde Park.

“I think I really started designing cocktails when I found a chef who was as passionate about fresh ingredients as I was,” said David Garrett, Twist’s bar manager.

To make his Twisted Sidecar, Garrett uses a simple syrup that chef Benjamin Mauk simmers with peeled ginger slices.

“From my end, it starts at what’s available to me locally — like in the spring and summer when local herbs start coming around, different kinds of mint — and what’s of good quality,” said Mauk, a Culinary Institute of America graduate. “I bring in some things that might be interesting for the kitchen or the bar, letting David know what we’ve got and he’ll think of drink specials.”

Twist’s specialty mixed drinks, which include a Spiced Pear Martini, Mango Bellini and Manhattan made with bourbon or whiskey, cost between $8 and $10.

Garrett tweaks his offerings nearly every week.

“Before our regular customers get through the door, they’re asking me, ‘What is the special drink tonight?’ ” he said.

Twist is participating in what mixology and spirits guru Allen Katz calls “the second golden age of the cocktail.”

“The cocktail is one of two gastronomic gifts that the United States has given the rest of the world,” said Katz, director of mixology and spirits education for Southern Wine & Spirits of New York and host of “The Cocktail Hour” on Martha Stewart Living Radio on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. “The other is Southern barbecue.”

Katz, who created cocktails for a special dinner at the CIA, said it has taken Americans decades after the repeal of Prohibition to restore their taste buds and cultural sensibilities when it comes to spirits.

“It is really just in the last dozen years that the artisan nature of mixology and spirits has been revived,” he said.

Katz paired chef Anita Eisenhauer’s braised pork shank, winter squash, bread pudding and braised greens with a cocktail featuring 12-year aged rum from Guatemala, a simple syrup made with unrefined brown sugar, fresh lime juice and an unusual ingredient: cardamom pods.

“Adding an herb or spice is a unique flavor, a surprise,” Katz said.

The cocktail aficionado also wowed diners that evening with the Hyde Park Puebla, made with Gran Centenario Tequila Reposado and a simple syrup of passion fruit and fresh lime juice, and the Il Filberto, made with Osbourne “Bailen” Oloroso Sherry, Carpano (an Italian vermouth) and orange bitters.

“These cocktails don’t knock you on your rear end,” he said. “They keep you revived.”
After the dinner, Katz headed to Poughkeepsie to sample the gourmet cocktails — $10 to $12 each — on the menu in the lounge at the new Shadows on the Hudson restaurant.

The mixologists at Shadows are serious about the quality of the spirits, the freshness of the fruits, vegetables and herbs and the wow-factor of the presentation.
“When you’re making drinks it’s important to have the proper ingredients,” said Justina Tozzi, as she muddled fresh cucumber for a Cucumber Cosmopolitan, which also features white cranberry juice.

“We taste our cocktails,” Tozzi said. “We’re not afraid to use a jigger. And we know the history of every spirit.”

Tozzi and the other mixologists at Shadows were trained by cocktail superstar Tobin Ellis, the founder of BarMagic of Las Vegas.

Ellis, who is most famous for besting Bobby Flay on the Food Network show, “Throwdown with Bobby Flay,” included his award-winning Aspen Mint Martini and Raspberry Mojave on the Shadows menu.

But Joseph Bonura Jr., who manages Shadows for his family business, still expects cocktail ingenuity from his in-house bar chefs.

“The drink of the day always comes from up in the tower by a beverage specialist,” Bonura said.

He directs a visitor’s gaze upward, where Matthew Henry, a CIA graduate, is stirring up his latest creation, a Pineapple Mojito, in a stainless steel skybox called the “cocktail tower.” The stage-like space above the regular bar is stocked with bottles of fruit purees and juices, herbs and high-end spirits.

“You’re only as good as the products you use,” said Henry, who makes his cocktail from fresh lime juice, muddled mint leaves, ripe pineapple and 10 Cane Rum, a luxury spirit created from the first pressing of virgin Trinidadian sugar cane, not molasses.

But while it is important to have fun with cocktails — Garrett of Twist makes a blue-hued Caribbean Martini in which he drops a couple of Swedish Fish candies — taste is what drives the valley’s mixologists.

“Customers want something that’s memorable, but not something too outrageous,” Garrett said. “I don’t think a truffle oil martini would go over.”

Kathleen Wereszynski Murray can be reached at kmurray@poughkeepsiejournal.com.