It’s National Cocktail Day and with the new world order changing every couple of days, you probably need a stiff drink. Enter Casa Lotos, a Mexican spirit made from sotol, an ancient wild native plant of Chihuahua. This newly emergent brand is produced by a fourth-generation “sotolero” and is showing well in prestigious awards competitions. In 2024, the spirit took home “Best of Class” and was a “Double Gold” winner in the San Francisco World Spirits Competition based on taste and its four pillars: authenticity, artisanal production, organic cultivation and sustainability. The brand’s motto is “Wild Harvested. Hand Crafted” and represents a fresh alternative to tequila and mezcal.
Here are three cocktails conceived by mixologists testing out the spirit in New York City, with a variety of venues— a Korean steakhouse, a modern Middle-Eastern bistro and a neighborhood seafood spot.
The Gui-tini
Ingredients:
Casa Lotos blanco sotol
Adray blended scotch
Tres Tribus cuishe mezcal
Steak-dripping infused Spanish vermouth
Orange bitters
Orange essence
Stir all ingredients together in a bar/drink-mixing glass and pour into a martini glass
Garnish with house-made beef jerky (available online)
Recipe courtesy of Gui Steakhouse
ECHOS
Ingredients:
2 dashes Scrappy’s Firewater Bitters
.50 oz agave syrup
.25 oz Empirical Ayuuk
.25 oz Pierre Ferrand Dry Curacao
1oz Casa Lotos Sotol
1 oz blanco tequila
Use a iSi culinary whipper (or similar) to create Passion fruit silan foam (see below)
Mix all in shaker and pour over ice in rocks glass. Top with the foam in the dispenser.
Recipe courtesy of Frena
For the foam: 150ml lime juice, 300 ml passionfruit syrup, 200 silan syrup, 3 g Magic Foam (pastry product), Maldon salt. Mix silan and Chinola (passion fruit syrup) with lime salt and Foam Magic
Margarita Del Mar
Ingredients:
4 dashes Nori tincture (see below)
1 oz. lime juice
.5 oz. Yuzu Honey blend (see below)
.25 oz. Alma Finca orange liqueur
1 oz. Casa Lotos Sotol
1 oz. Tequila Don Fulano
Shake all ingredients and strain into a rocks class over a king cube. Garnish with a Nori chip.
Recipe courtesy of Time and Tide
For the nori tincture:
20g Nori, 1000ml Everclear. Place in vacuum seal bag or container. Let infuse 24 hours. Strain through flexible sieve. Bottle, label and store for use.