‘Cinn City’
courtesy of ‘Jenn Larsen’
I may not care a fig for Valentine’s Day (of course having said that, I fully expect a boatload of lilies delivered to my door, please) but I do love cocktails! So does the Georgetown BID, which has pulled together a bunch of restaurants to provide you with enough aphrodisiac concoctions to seduce even the hardest of hearts. Starting tonight, these selections (“Love Potions,” natch) will be available through Valentine’s Day all across the Georgetown circuit at 19 spots including Mie N Yu, Neyla, and 1789. Drinks are 2 for $14, for couples or friends.
Now, I rarely get to Georgetown these days but two of the sips I sampled earlier this week were tempting enough to get me to return (that and the cocktail shaker shaped like a dumbbell that I spied in an antiques window – ahem, gift?). The standout was created by Bourbon Steak’s very talented Duane Sylvestre. As you can probably guess from the name – Cinn City – it has the red hot spice of cinnamon as its top note, with the other ingredients being Four Roses bourbon and Peychaud’s bitters (First reaction? “It really does taste like a Red Hot! But not in a candy way.”). Cinnamon has long been touted as an aphrodisiac, and the bitters add some danger. Throw in the sexiness of Bourbon Steak’s lounge and who knows what could happen, maybe you’ll destroy a reputation or two.
If Cinn City is a drink for passionate danger, then the second cocktail I sampled is for heart’s ease, at Degrees in the hidden Ritz Carlton. Sinking into a couch in front of the fireplace in their soaring-ceilinged great room, the environment whispered “snowed-in ski lodge” to me, which is always an entree to bad behavior. I’m also a sucker for any drink involving florals. The Intense Rose cocktail is beautifully balanced and with a nose that rosarians will find very appealing – Bombay Sapphire gin, champagne, elderflower liqueur, rose water and a floating rose petal on top made for a gentle nightcap.
If only I really had been snowed in somewhere! But the weather forecast for a bar crawl through Georgetown this weekend is pretty balmy. And we know how frisky this city gets when the first tantalizing hints of spring begin…
As one of the founding editors of We Love DC, Jenn’s passions are theater and cocktails. After two decades in the city, she’s loved every quirky, mundane, elegant, rude minute of her DC life. A proud advocate for DC’s talented drinks scene, she’s judged the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s ARTINI contest, the DC Rickey Month contest, the Jefferson Hotel’s Quill Cocktail competition, and is a founding member of LUPEC DC. A graduate of Catholic University’s drama program, she toured the country as a member of National Players, and has been both an actor and a costume designer before jumping the aisle to theater criticism. Writing for We Love DC restored her happiness after a life-threatening illness, and she’s grateful to you, dear readers. Send your suggestions to jenn (at) welovedc (dot) com and follow her on Twitter.
