The menu, inspired by the natural flavours of the seasonal spring harvest in France, features 15 cocktails that look to highlight a single ingredient.
On creating the menu, Kevin Rigault, director of Bar Les Ambassadeurs tells DI: “Deciding which ingredients to incorporate from those that are in season presents its own set of challenges. We've had to roll up our sleeves and embark on a thorough exploration, reaching out to our network of suppliers and scouring the internet to identify which ingredients thrive in France throughout the season.”
Rigault adds the process however leads to some exclusions in ingredients due to availability for the duration of the menu, with winter and spring “posing challenges as the array of fruits typically dwindles during these colder months. However, these limitations have sparked our creativity and pushed us to think outside the box.
“We've embraced the challenge of crafting drinks from unconventional sources, sometimes turning to vegetables that aren't typically associated with cocktails. Among the ingredients we've worked with, butternut squash from our winter menu was one of the most challenging.
“Creating a cocktail around this ingredient required significant time and experimentation. The drink itself, was a variation on the classic old fashioned, featuring a blend of single malt whisky sweetened with a winter spice syrup and infused with butternut squash purée, all clarified with milk,” adds Rigault.
The new menu includes ingredients such as lemon, rhubarb, tomato and beetroot, “allowing us to showcase the ingredients when they are at their absolute best”, Rigault continues, including visual illustrations of the cocktails generated through AI.
