Courtesy Mission Taco Joint
With droves of people sheltering at home during the COVID-19 crisis, home cooking has seen a huge uptick—or, at the very least, experimenting with sourdough and focaccia has taken hold. But far fewer people have all of the supplies and ingredients on hand to make their favorite cocktails or to feel confident making Manhattans and Negronis in their kitchens.
Whether you’re missing the classics or the newer, barrel-aged drinks, you’re in luck, though. Last week, the Missouri Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control issued a temporary suspension of state law that allows bars and restaurants to sell pre-batched cocktails to go. Businesses are required to package the drinks in sealed, leak- and tamper-proof containers and provide customers with dated receipts for the purchase; customers must also order food alongside the cocktails. Amid the pandemic, states and municipalities across the country have issued waivers to allow for the temporary sale of these drinks, as they offer a currently beleaguered industry one more revenue opportunity (not to mention offering customers more options while social distancing at home).
Two local business owners played a big role in advocating for the change in Missouri: Adam Tilford, co-owner of Mission Taco Joint, and Benjamin Brown of Satchmo’s Bar & Grill. Both are now offering sealed cocktails for curbside pickup; at Mission, you’ll find pre-batched margaritas, while classic cocktails and frozen tropical drinks are the focus at Satchmo’s.
Courtesy Cobalt Smoke & Sea
Photography by Guinevere Lorenz
As news of the suspension spread around town this week, a bevvy of other restaurants and bars announced similar offerings. At Cobalt Smoke & Sea in Creve Coeur, owner Bernadette Faasen and bartender Tim Dressel have developed a line of delicious craft cocktails. The first line debuted with fun names that riff on current streamable obsessions, such as the Tiger King Rum Punch, which combines white rum, pineapple, lime, pomegranate, passionfruit, and mango. Others poke fun at our collective cabin fever, such as the Honey, I’m Home (Always)!, with Earl Grey tea-infused bourbon, lemon, honey, apricot, and mint.
“We’re trying to add some fun and laughter and some smiles to perk people up,” Faasen says. “I think people are just so tired of sitting at home all of the time."
Courtesy Cobalt Smoke & Sea
Photography by Guinevere Lorenz
Made with freshly squeezed juices and house-made syrups, the drinks are meant to be enjoyed soon after purchase (unless you want to pop them in the freezer for a future boozy slushie). The 12-ounce cocktail packs are $12—a steal, considering one 6-ounce drink is often around $12 at a restaurant. “We wanted to do something fun for the community,” Faasen says.
Cobalt’s current line of cocktails sold out last weekend, and a new set will debut this week. While Faasen doesn’t want to spoil the surprise, she says she’s excited to share them. Having the ability to offer cocktails to go has reenergized her, her team, and their business, she says.
“We’re now selling more cocktails than food, which is crazy,” Faasen says. “I think people have paused on spending so much money on dining out, but all of a sudden, there are these new hot cocktails, and they want to try them. It’s opened us up to new sales again and remotivated us.”
Courtesy Juniper
Across town, at Juniper in the Central West End, chef-owner John Perkins and bar manager Brendan Sante are hard at work on mixing up cocktails to go as well. Guests can choose from eight different Juniper classics, including the Tennis with Hemingway, Put it in Your Purse, and The Presbyterian. Cocktails are packaged in vacuum-sealed pouches; all customers must do is pick them up, clip off the top, and pour them over ice.
For so many restaurants, having the ability to serve cocktails to go alongside food has given them a little more opportunity to recoup lost revenue. Although 60 percent of Juniper’s revenue has historically been from food sales, the cost of labor and time to create those meals is far greater than the prep and work required to make even complex cocktails.
“Every little bit counts,” Perkins says. “Just for the sake of exploring it more, when we were doing DoorDash, we couldn’t sell alcohol at all. So in theory, the limited revenue we were getting was already greatly reduced, and then you chop off an additional 40 percent. So we were losing out on a lot of potential sales not being able to sell alcohol. So now that we can do the full spectrum, including beer and wine, it allows us the chance to capture even more revenue, which is just so, so important right now.”
Like food orders and wine and beer sales, Juniper’s to-go cocktails can be ordered through its website and are available for contactless curbside pickup.
Courtesy Elmwood
While some business owners are packing up drinks in vacuum-sealed, throwaway containers for convenience and ease, others are taking different approaches. At Elmwood in Maplewood, bar manager Dave Greteman is mixing up three bottled cocktails to sell curbside: a house Negroni made with a blend of vermouths and bitters, a Manhattan made with Old Overholt rye whiskey, and a shaken spicy tequila number. All three cocktails are available in 750-milliliter and 375-milliliter glass bottles, and they’re sealed with a dramatic red wax.
“It’s a luxury to go out and buy a cocktail to go, and packaging is super important to the aesthetic of the restaurant,” says Elmwood co-owner Chris Kelling. “We’re still in the hospitality business and providing people with a bit of an escape no matter the form. It just kind of carried with our brand, and we felt that this was truest to the kind of experience we’re trying to create with our product and within their own walls [at home].” Elmwood’s website offers the to-go cocktails as well as food, wine, and beer.
Courtesy Pastaria
Meanwhile, fans of barrel-aged cocktails might ring up Pastaria in Clayton or one of Salt + Smoke’s four area locations. Pastaria chef-owner Gerard Craft shared on social media that the Brasserie Old Fashioned and a barrel-aged Negroni are now available for purchase and curbside pickup in glass bottles.
At Salt + Smoke, guests will find the restaurant’s classic barrel-aged Negroni alongside five other barrel-aged drinks from its normal bar list: The Elder Uncle, the Apple Barrel, an Old Fashioned, the Salt + Smoke original, and a Manhattan. Sold in 32-ounce glass decanter bottles, the specialty cocktails debuted last Friday.
Courtesy Salt & Smoke
“We wanted to offer items that were distinctly Salt + Smoke, so these barrel-aged cocktails that our guests have come to love over the past several years to be able to give that flavor and experience of dining at Salt + Smoke, just from your living room,” says owner Tom Schmidt. “All of the cocktails have different pricing based on what goes into them. The Manhattan is all booze, so it’s 32 ounces of booze that comes out to basically 10 cocktails, and we’re selling that for $49.99, so less than $5 a drink. We wanted these to be of great value as well.”
Amid the pandemic, when so much feels uncertain and taxing, Schmidt hopes that these cocktails can offer something comforting and unique. “What we’ve always been about is hospitality and comfort and making people feel at home," says Schmidt, "and I think everything we can do right now to make things more familiar for our guests and more unique for them is really important.”
Courtesy Brennan's
Even restaurants and bars that are temporarily closed are getting in on the curbside cocktail action. At Brennan’s, which is relocating steps away from its original location in the Central West End later this year, the team has launched a way to get snacks and cocktails to your front door. Dubbed Booze and Snacks, the delivery service offers customers delivery for wine, beer, spirits, and cigars, as well as snacks and gift boxes. Soon, Brennan’s will also release cocktail kits and bottled mixed cocktails for two to four people.
“Our pricing is very competitive, and, in some cases, well below other local retail options,” owner Kevin Brennan said in a release. “We’re moving through inventory and trying to offer people some nice items for sheltering in place. We’ll be uploading unique booze and snack boxes curated by us often, and we’re also letting people build their own custom gift boxes.”
Booze and Snacks operates Monday through Saturday from 4–9 p.m., and same-day delivery is available for customers who place orders by 4 p.m. Customers are charged a $4.50 delivery fee for orders under $50.
Courtesy STL barkeep
Fans of craft cocktails can find rotating options from the founder and owner of STL Barkeep, Matthew John. Under the all-too-apt name Silver Living Cocktails, John recently launched a cocktail delivery service offering canned cocktails in four packs for $20 (plus a $5 delivery fee), made in partnership with Matt Foster of Firepot Nomadic Teas, a brand from Kaldi’s Coffee.
The first line included cocktails such as bourbon with hibiscus tea, gin with Moroccan jasmine mint tea, tequila with passionfruit, and lime and vodka with lavender. The initial run of 60 four-packs sold out in just two days.
Courtesy Baileys' Restaurants
Courtesy Baileys' Restaurants
Hurricanes at Knockout BBQ are made with fresh fruit juices and light and dark rum.
Baileys' Restaurants recently rolled out The Best of Baileys', an online virtual store featuring a variety of grocery boxes for purchase (or donation), as well as a la carte options, including cocktails from several family restaurants: a Fresh Hurricane Kit from Knockout BBQ, a Bloody Mary Kit from Rooster (batched versions of both are coming soon), a bottle of pre-made Manhattans from Small Batch, and five kinds of Baileys' Chocolate Bar martinis (Milk Chocolate, Very Dark, Mint Chip, Dark Chocolate Raspberry, and The Sexual). The 750-millileter bottles of martinis (good for three to four cocktails) are priced from $19.99 to $21.99.
Today, The Crossing announced its line of signature cocktails (in 6- or 12-ounce bottles, priced $24 to $72), available for pickup or delivery. Choose from a barrel-aged Negroni, bourbon Manhattan, a proper Sazerac, and more—topped off with a "big rock ice cube" for $2.
Courtesy The Crossing
And beginning tomorrow, 612North, the catering and event space on Laclede's Landing, is selling quarts and half-gallons ($25.95 and $47.95 respectively) of Raspberry Lemonade, Blue Hawaiian, and Sangria for curbside pick-up or delivery.
