Celebrate the festival season with five drinks inspired by this year’s performances
1. Le Farfalle: A Fiery End
The Beaufain Street restaurant pays homage to Pia de’ Tolomei (an opera that sets Dante’s Purgatorio in pre-WWII Tuscany) with a sweet-and-spicy mix of vodka, chile liqueur, citrus juice, and Campari. “I was inspired by the tragic ending,” maker Katrina Duva says. “The drink starts out citrusy and has a subtle spice throughout with a bitter bottom.”
2. Victor Social Club: The Victor Valdés
To toast the lively Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés, raise this tropical cocktail made with a blend of white, aged, and coconut rums; Creole shrub (orange-flavored liqueur); house-made falernum (a sweet syrup with notes of almond, ginger, and lime that has Caribbean roots); and fresh citrus juice, garnished with a wedge of lime.
3. Zero George: Two Worlds in Thyme
Before seeing Tree of Codes—a two-singer opera influenced by Jonathan Safran Foer’s book of the same name—order this drink, whose starring herb riffs on the subject of time. Thyme-infused Aperol is shaken with rum, vermouth, bitters, gin, lemon, egg white, and citrus-thyme syrup and finished with a sprig of thyme.
4. The Watch: Ranky Tanky Ring Shout
Classic Southern ingredients—sorghum, peanuts, peaches, and benne seeds—are creatively presented in this whiskey cocktail inspired by Ranky Tanky, the quintet that performs updated spins on Gullah songs. Sorghum whiskey gets infused with roasted peanuts, then mixed with muddled peach, vermouth, simple syrup, and benne seed bitters.
5. The Macintosh: The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart
Oaky Auchentoshen Scotch, Hoodoo chickory liqueur, and Dolin Blanc vermouth pair surprisingly well with bright pomegranate juice and floral chamomile tea in this sip, which takes its name from the surreal, dream-like performance that combines anarchic theater with live music at the Woolfe Street Playhouse.
