Le Weekend

“We wanted to make sure our menu was accessible to all, vodka drinkers included,” says Esmon, and Le Weekend is the answer. (Though it’s the only pre-planned vodka option on the menu, a variety of the drink choices leave the selection of spirit up to the guest.)

Le Weekend is essentially a deconstructed Cosmopolitan. The base is Tito’s vodkamade in Austin, Texas at the state’s first and oldest (legal) distillery. Added to it is a dry and recently revived version of orange curacao and a cranberry gastrique (instead of a Cosmo’s cranberry juice). Lime juice gets ousted by a much hipper lime bitters and then the cocktail is shaken, rather than stirred.

Finally, forget the martini glass. When the Le Weekend is finished, it’s poured into a coupe, the first glass invented specifically for drinking champagne. (Though actually invented long before Marie Antoinette, folklore mythology holds that the coupe was initially molded from the queen’s left breast. It’s said she wanted courtiers to drink to their health from a replica of her bosom.)