When you live downtown, going to a bar on the far edge of Fair Haven feels like an adventure. That goes double when the bar is Fair Haven Oyster Company, where the cocktails are known for pushing you out of your comfort zone, whether because you don’t recognize an ingredient or because you can’t quite believe they’ve put it into a drink.
For the tequila-based Swish & Flow ($15), served pale yellow on the rocks with a half-rim of “warm spices,” that ingredient is white shoyu, a soy sauce variant the internet tells me is made mostly from lightly fermented wheat. Inhaling aromas of anise and lime as I went in for a taste, I was soon sifting through herbal colors and citric zing to find an alluring sweet-savory note that I guessed must be the shoyu. But things really escalated when I started sipping from the other half of the rim, where malted sea salt, black peppercorn, star anise, clove, sugar and cilantro produced a saltier, spicier, lightly smoky, more textural experience that lingered on and on. Those components were infused into the tequila as well, according to Erin Sawyer, one of the evening’s two excellent bartenders, who said the recipe was “inspired by all the spices you find in pho.” Earlier, Nicole Peruso, the other bartender and the maker of my drink, had described the Swish & Flow as a play on a margarita, meaning FHOC is the kind of place that can and will mash up a staple Vietnamese soup and a Mexican-American party drink.
Somehow, my next choice proved even bolder: the Poetry & Poise ($15), which you might think of as a dirty Gibson. The “dirty” part was oh-so-clean: a house-made onion brine stirred with gin, dry vermouth and celery bitters. Even a strong waft of salt off the drink couldn’t prepare me for the potency and refinement of the savoriness on the palate. Drinking this felt like eating it, even as I compared it to what spring water might taste like if it had spent a whole century gliding past mineral deposits. Any alcoholic edge from the gin and vermouth was completely neutralized, though I certainly felt the booze. An American James Bond would order this, and he’d risk looking dainty to eat the skewered pickled onion garnish at the bottom of the glass: a sweet, acetic, crunchy exclamation point.
But it was the New Zealander ($10), a mocktail I learned could leave the menu next week (with a possible summer comeback), that put the final punctuation on my night. Orange and coconut cream combined for a low-sugar current of Orange Julius, while nutmeg offered lift, toasted cardamom syrup provided depth and the lead ingredient, kiwi, delivered a beautiful sweet tartness that made every next sip irresistible.
The sum was so developed and delicious that I didn’t miss the alcohol, though, given FHOC’s adventurous nature, I bet they’d spike it with rum if you ask.
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
