Since the Super Bowl, you may have noticed that some of the city’s wine-and-beer–only restaurants now stash small selections of brown and white liquor bottles behind their bars. A lucky group of restaurateurs had the chance to upgrade their liquor licenses for a steal, and it is making us rather thirsty.
When it comes to making cash during the biggest event this city’s seen, Sensu is stocked and ready to serve loaded East Coast visitors. The deliveries have been rolling in, including cases of Grey Goose in an array of flavors, Patron, and Jack Daniel’s. You know, the usual.
Everyone has a favorite sandwich, and coming up with a list that visitors must try means wandering into dangerous territory. But a mob of hungry football fans is heading our way, so it had to be done. With Hoosier hospitality in mind, Indianapolis Monthly and the Indiana Office of Tourism Development chose 46 of the state’s standouts in time for the Super Bowl. The final list is now available in the Indiana 2012 Travel Guide, online.
Erin Edds always was a fan of the Bloody Mary, but she could never find one worth her while. When an event planner asked her to submit an Indy-centric pro-duct for some Super Bowl suite baskets in 2010, Edds, then co-owner of local gourmet packaged-goods company Country Mouse City Mouse, took the opportunity to fill the void. “If I could make a Bloody Mary that I loved,” she says, “I’d guarantee other people would love it, too.”
Of all the experiments chef Neal Brown has conducted, whether in his kitchen laboratoire or the culinary free market, none has come as close to successful alchemy as The Libertine Liquor Bar, his shrine to the cocktail in a Washington Street storefront downtown. A shot of Scandinavian austerity, a jigger of pre-Prohibition American frontier swagger, and a dash of orange bitters dosed from eyedroppers by Brown’s exacting barkeeps, The Libertine is a study in contrasts—some logical, some forced—that all mingle, dazzlingly. Take “The Last Word,” one of several clever coinages on Brown’s drink menu. It mixes Bluecoat gin, lending its distinctly piney profile, with Luxardo maraschino and green chartreuse, haute liqueurs as opposite as stop and go. A bracing hit of lime merges these improbable comrades into a restrained elixir that cleanses the palate at the same time it sweetens it, a beguiling medicine you’re all too glad to take.
Editor’s Note, June 22, 2012: Sensu announced early this month that it will no longer serve dinner. It will, however, remain an upscale nightclub and special-event venue, with Asian-inspired catering services available. You get the sense, stepping off Meridian Street into the vaulted pleasure palace of Sensu, another in Jeremiah Hamman’s growing portfolio of […]
“As all of us change, this place stays the same. Ever since I was a little girl, I wanted to get in here. And one of the first times I bartended, my grandfather was sitting at the end of the bar watching everything I did. Which was intimidating. I just wish he could see me back there now.”
