Spago in Beverly Hills channels the glitzy roots of the original location of the restaurant, which was opened by Wolfgang Puck in the early 1980s and quickly became known for its VIP guest list. Dining there already evokes the past, specifically the waning years of the 20th century. The restaurant’s current bar program, which recalls classics from the pre-Prohibition era, goes even further back in time, to a period when Los Angeles as we know it today was just in its infancy. Bar director Adam Fournier has transformed a century-old cocktail into a julep fit for spring. The Almost Foxy is his most recent riff on a whiskey-and–crème de cacao Old-Fashioned called the Fox River, a drink he’s been playing around with for almost a decade.
The Fox River originally appeared in the 1905 edition of Charles S. Mahoney’s Hoffman House Bartender’s Guide, where it was listed as the Fox River Toddy. (While today, the toddy is firmly cemented in the hot drink category, in its early days, the mix of spirit, sugar and water was still sometimes served chilled.) The recipe calls for stirring rye, crème de cacao, sugar and German bitters with ice, and finishing with a lemon twist. Almost 20 years later, Harry MacElhone included his version in Harry of Ciro’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails, which Fournier counts among his favorite cocktail books. That recipe keeps the chocolate liqueur, sugar and lemon twist, but calls for bourbon instead of rye and plugs in peach bitters for the German bitters that had been popular in the Gilded Age.
That’s the version that Fournier first encountered, so it’s no surprise that his Almost Foxy plays up the stone fruit aspect. In his recipe, thanks to a few infusions, the drink has what Fournier calls “a chocolate-dusted dried apricot vibe.” The other big change he’s made is ditching the Old-Fashioned presentation, turning the drink into a julep that’s whip-shaken with mint and dumped into a rocks glass, then piled high with crushed ice and garnished with a bouquet of more mint.
The reason for this major shift in presentation is not just the seasonality of the drink—which has gone from winter-friendly to suited to Los Angeles’ year-round warm weather—but also the fact that Spago is a restaurant, which demands that the cocktail list be food-friendly. Fournier says that crushed-ice drinks make the transitions between various courses, and from cocktails to wine and back again, seamless. “As the ice melts, it’s going to dilute more, opening up different flavors,” he says.
For the bourbon, Fournier favors Four Roses Single Barrel, a 100-proof expression that, due to its mash bill’s high rye percentage, inadvertently bridges the gap between Mahoney’s rye-based recipe and MacElhone’s bourbon-based spec. The rye, he says, contributes a touch of spice, which has a lively conversation in the glass with the chocolate and vanilla in the Tempus Fugit crème de cacao. The rich, viscous liqueur is based on a 19th-century formula—which is appropriate, given the period the Fox River was originally created.
To make the apricot bitters, Fournier blends a neutral spirit with fresh apricots, strains the mixture, and then clarifies it using a centrifuge. He infuses that spirit with toasted apricot kernels and finishes it with a small measure of bitter almond extract.
Rather than organizing by genre or spirit, Spago’s cocktail list is arranged according to “body,” which Fournier says makes for more effective food pairing. The Almost Foxy is in the “full-bodied” section. But, says Fournier, customers don’t always know what to expect of this particular cocktail when they’re perusing the menu. “It’s one of those things where you read the description of this drink’s presentation and flavors, but it’s not the easiest thing to visualize in your head,” says Fournier, especially the amaretto aspect, which throws people off at first given the word’s association with the very sweet liqueur. “It’s kind of a palate shock,” says Fournier. After trying the drink, one might think, I know this flavor, but I’m not used to it in this particular iteration.
That novelty is part of the charm, and once the cocktail is in a guest’s hand, it never fails to please. It’s surprisingly refreshing, making it an ideal spirit-forward cocktail in sun-drenched L.A. Fournier thinks of it as the stone fruit julep of your dreams that comes with a touch of golden age cocktail history. The Almost Foxy, he says, proves that “being nerdy can be tasty.”