The new menu, which runs from today (7 July) until New Year’s Eve, has seen the collaboration of poets, illustrators and the bar team – each cocktail named to rhyme with Trick Dog.
The bar has continued its approach of supporting local creative businesses and pledging proceeds of sales of its book-menus (the latest priced at $35) to local charities.
Owners Scott Baird and Josh Harris partnered with satirical publishing company and website McSweeney's to create the tongue-in-cheek children's book, with profits going to McSweeney's and SOMArts. The poems in the book-menu were written by Daniel Levin Becker, the illustrations by Ferris Plock and Kelly Tunstall, and the cocktails by the Trick Dog team.
Harris told Drinks International: “When we create menus in a book format people want them as collectables – not just for the cocktails.”
The children’s book-menu was an idea a while in the making. “Typically the ideas that come to fruition are more polished versions of ideas that have come up along the way. The kids book idea came up before but we hadn’t figured how to do it until this year,” said Harris.
Drinks such as Hick Dialogue (Larceny bourbon, ginger-pinot noir vermouth, Luxardo Sangue Morlacco cherry liqueur, peanut butter and jelly sandwich) and Broomstick Backlog (Tanqueray gin, Suze, apricot, white miso, lime, Kimino yuzu soda) are expected to be among the most popular.
Harris added: “The initial concept was shot down by some of the staff at the bar. They thought drinks with rhyming names would be a nightmare [during service] – but our response was: that will be really funny. But we thought a little deeper and introduced compound rhymes rather than straight rhymes [to avoid confusion].
Later this month Trick Dog is up for World’s Best Cocktail Menu at Tales of the Cocktail’s Spirited Awards for its last menu which was based around murals.
