A tall, crushable mixture of fragrant flavors from France, Mexico, and Japan comes collectively within the Nothing in Between cocktail from Denver’s Yacht Club bar. A white wine base of French Chardonnay is mixed with sotol, shochu, matcha syrup, yuzu juice, and verjus — a juice made with unripe wine grapes — alongside the liqueurs Suze and St-Germain.
McLain Hedges, co-owner and beverage director at Yacht Clubcreated this cocktail, initially impressed by the complexities of Chablis, a crisp, mineral-forward white wine.
“With this drink, we thought, ‘where can we use this beautiful mineral-driven, slightly flinty Chardonnay that has so much texture and depth?’” says Hedges. “We started thinking about what spirits offer that very mineral expression as well — of terroir and whatnot — and we started thinking about agave and sotol and all of these other elements that could bring that full circle.”
Matcha, with a taste profile that ranges from vegetal and savory to earthy and barely candy, was additionally an inspiration for Hedges, noting that its perceived tannin construction stands as much as a wide range of different components.
“Matcha has that beautifully earthy quality to it,” says Hedges. “Grassy and earthy. When you add these other components to matcha, it really does brighten it up into something that’s more uplifting, than something that is heavy.”
The cocktail’s title: Nothing in Between? “The whole idea was essentially connecting the dots in between each ingredient,” says Hedges.
Why Nothing in Between works
“Some of the flavors make sense together,” says Hedges. “There [are] also a couple of things in there that I think are very untraditional, maybe that you wouldn’t see alongside those flavors. It certainly becomes a melting pot of global flavors, in a lot of ways.”
As Hedges notes, the qualities of Chablis, a decidedly crisp, contemporary, and acidic white wine, function the bottom and inspiration behind the opposite components added.
Sotol, a local spirit of Mexico, constructed from a shrub referred to as desert spoon, tends to echo a few of matcha’s traits: vibrant, grassy, earthy, and typically vegetal. Shochu, a Japanese spirit, may specific wealthy, umami qualities. The two liqueurs referred to as for on this cocktail — Suze and St-Germain — characteristic the drink’s floral notes, with Suze offering layers of citrus, honey, and bitter gentian. Both the yuzu juice and verjus additional add acidity, vibrant fruit, and a balancing tartness.
In the top, every ingredient deliberately performs off the others within the Nothing in Between cocktail. As Hedges says, “The entire concept was basically [to] join the dots in between every ingredient.”
