Ever wonder what deep space tastes like? To be honest, it’s not something we ever fully considered until browsing the menu at NYC’s newly opened Bar Contra.
Featured among the Lower East Side cocktail bar’s list of shaken drinks is the Sagittarius B2, a drink that, according to the menu, replicates “the taste of the center of the galaxy.” While drinkers might come across this description and suspect it’s just a figure of speech, it turns out the statement is scientifically accurate. So, how does the bar team actually know what the inner layers of the universe taste like, and how did they replicate it in a drink? To answer these intergalactic questions, VinePair tapped Dave Arnold, drinks expert and partner at Bar Contra.
Arnold recalls coming across an article about a cloud of gas at the center of the Milky Way called Sagittarius B2 that caught his interest. It detailed the findings of astronomers conducting research on the possibility of life on other planets and investigating a giant dust cloud in search of amino acids. But instead of finding protein precursors as hoped, the scientists found ethyl formate, the chemical compound that gives raspberries their flavor. It’s also known to smell like rum.
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“Right away, I knew I wanted to make a drink,” Arnold recalls. “It only got better when I learned that there are also cyanide compounds in that cloud.” In bitter almonds, the compound amygdalin breaks down into cyanide and benzaldehyde, which gives almond extract its aroma. Arnold decided an orgeat was the perfect tie-in.
It’s no surprise that Arnold pulled this inspiration from the science world. He’s widely known for his highly technical approach to drinks, pioneering inventive preparations at his now-closed bars Booker & Dax and Existing Conditions and in his book “Liquid Intelligence.” The biggest issue with his newest project: making the ingredients work. Though rum is standard base and almond orgeat is a natural pair for the spirit, raspberries are a bit of black sheep in the cocktail world, rarely used outside of the Clover Club.
“Raspberries aren’t normally used in cocktails because they don’t have enough acid to act like lime, or enough sugar to act like syrup — and are expensive,” Arnold notes. To address this issue, he implemented the acid adjusting technique — a method that Arnold himself popularized at Existing Conditions — adding further scientific flair to this already geek-y drink.
“I used acid adjusting to boost the acid in the raspberry juice to 6 percent,” he says. “Then, the drink practically mixed itself.”
The resulting Sagittarius B2 cocktail is a stunning bright pink and served up in a glass chilled by liquid nitrogen. And the palate? Some might say it’s out of this world.
