Jeff Josenhans | Drink Shrink

Any good alcoholic beverage consumer is familiar with champagne and we all recognize how natural it is to begin an evening of festivities with a glass of the bubbly stuff. Something about that extra zip in the glass and a crisp wine profile just starts off the evening in the right direction, every time.

Now cocktails are adapting some of the same characteristics right here in Downtown San Diego – bubbles, less alcohol, and a little bit of an edge to the cocktail that makes your mouth water and your mind want to get the evening moving forward.

In fact, this is what you call an aperitif. An aperitif is simply a cocktail that was designed to start off a meal or an evening. Try some of these apertifs below right here in SD!

The Neighborhood, the front bar where Noble Experiment is located, was the first bar to start serving cocktails on tap here in San Diego. Their recipes change as all good drink menus should, but you can almost always count on some Campari in there somewhere. Their latest addition to the family – Polite Provisions – also serves straight apertifs like Lillet Rose as well as kegged cocktails.

Sangria is a classic aperitif choice and the Bartender’s Whim Sangria at Saltbox is a great alternative to start a night out on the town in an often overlooked bar inside the Palomar Hotel. Personally I love a good cava Sangria so put the bartender to the test and see what suits you before that next Journey cover band concert you go see at HOB next door.

The Grant Grill inside the historic US Grant Hotel has truly taken the champagne approach in a literal sense – by being the first bar in the country to actually create bubbles – in a pre-mixed, bottle-fermented cocktail using champagne yeast. This is called the Methode Champenoise and this is how all champagne is made, as well as any decent sparkling wine. The Grill currently has two cocktails of this type available, branded as their Cocktails Sur Lie category: the La Grenade (a blend of Cognac, hibiscus, pomegranate juice, pepper and bay leaf) and The Mule (a take on the popular Moscow Mule). It’s literally an aperitif in a champagne bottle and must be tried.

“Sur lie” means “rested on lees” in French and is a classic winemaking term used in Champagne production, as well as other whites primarily. Lees are the dead yeast cells that literally die in the bottle after eating all of the sugar from the grape yeast. The bi-product of this process is CO2, which is how bubbles are created in champagne production. These cocktails in a bottle are the result of much tinkering in the cocktail lab and a desire to push the creative envelope, not only here in the San Diego but across the nation. Aside from the seasonal line of these libations listed above, they have a variation of the legendary Cosmopolitan coming this summer. You can also order the Mule product online at muleatthegrant.com.

It’s summer people. Apertifs were pretty much designed to start out a fantastic summer evening. Get out to these spots right in your backyard and try some!

In just three years, level 2 CMS Sommelier and Master Mixologist Jeff Josenhans has changed the dynamic in The Grant Grill Downtown from a classic institution to an exciting lounge and elegant restaurant. Taking the kitchen’s “Farm to Table” philosophy to the bar, he has developed a seasonal cocktail program based largely on the hotel’s rooftop garden. He can be reached at [email protected].