Matchbook Distilling and The Lin Beach House co-owner Leslie Merinoff knows all about the transporting power of flavor — so leave it to her spirited distilling talents, and those of Lin beverage director Joe Coleman, to offer up a mini-vaca from frosty January.
On Saturday night, Jan. 10, from 6 to 10 p.m., Merinoff is hosting a super fun Winter Tiki Pop-Up night at The Lin Beach House (455 Rte. 25, Greenport), offering up four inspired riffs on classic Tiki cocktails, along with comely complementary small plates crafted to pair precisely with them by chef Taylor Knapp of PawPaw fame.
“Tiki in the winter is so irreverent and fun — and so escapist!” says Merinoff. “So we wanted to offer the unlikely paradox of wet, snowy, muddy January on the outside, but come in here for a really wonderful tropical break from that.”
What is Tiki? In post-Depression era America, Tiki culture — from drinks to clothes to home decor and accoutrements to music — functioned as an escapist world where people could take a little liquid vacation from their woes. Born in the 1930s in California, when an enterprising bartender and restaurateur named Ernest “Donn Beach” Gantt opened Hollywood’s Don the Beachcomber in 1933 and, hot on its heels, Trader Vics from Victor Bergeron in Oakland in 1937, mimicking South Pacific and Polynesian flavors and decor. Often rum-centric (though not always) drinks from this era — the Mai Tai, the Navy Grog, Zombie — would become potent staples of cocktail culture. Their reputation was pure fun, but within them lay a complex culinary delight of nuanced flavors.
This is certainly another part of Tiki that Merinoff is drawn to, evident in her delicious, thoroughly creative spirits. “We’ll be using Ritual Sister, our smoked pineapple spirit; Nowhere, our triple sec. We’ve been sold out of Mad King — our apple brandy distilled with hops from my uncle’s [Stewart Morris] upstate farm, Indian Ladder — but we just found a forgotten case, so that will be in the mix!” she says. You can also expect Land of Muses, their gin-shochu project that offers up tropical fruit Almond Joy-like flavors and, of course, for the rum center of it all: Matchbook Distilling’s Cold Brew Rum, a co-ferment of cold brew coffee and pot distilled rum.
Coleman, who also runs Doublespeak Craft Cocktails, a cocktail-focused event bar and beverage service on the North and South forks, has come up with the evening’s Tiki-centric sips some of Matchbook’s more tropical-leaning spirits and liqueurs:
- Mai Tai-ish: Ritual Sister smoked pineapple, reposado tequila, orange liqueur, orgeat and fresh lime.
- Lost World: Dark rum, Mad King Apple Brandy, cinnamon, Demerara syrup, fresh lemon juice
- Lin-Lin Royale: Blanco tequila, Falernum, blue Curacao, orgeat, fresh lime and sparkling wine
- Short Trip: Cold Brew Rum, bourbon, cinnamon, honey, vanilla, fresh lime juice and club soda
- HumuNukuApua’a: A Land of Muses gin, pineapple, orgeat, fresh lemon juice and Peychaud’s bitters.
The Lin Beach House Winter Tiki Pop-up is Saturday, Jan. 10, from 6 to 9 p.m. Cocktails are $16; paired bites are $12 to $18. No reservations needed.
“Escapism is not always guaranteed but you get it, there’s nothing better,” says Merinoff. “That’s how some of my best nights have happened.”
