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Does the Greek debt situation call for a stiff drink? Yes, says one of New York's top mixologists, who just happens to be of Greek descent and who submitted to the challenge posed to him: Create a cocktail that might soothe the woes of Greek Prime Minister Yiorgos Papandreou and the nation at large, as both endure a sisyphean nightmare, a Homeric mess and a Greek tragedy all in one.
The mixologist up to the task is Ektoras Binikos, who mans the bar at Manhattan's Oceana restaurant. Binikos has a following that began at Aureole, where he was head mixologist for 11 years. What brought us together was something far more visceral than a few beguiling cocktails. Not only is he a fellow Greek New Yorker, but he hails from the same island as me, a sparsely populated, heavily forested parcel of land called Ikaria on the windy eastern fringes of the Aegean. There are not too many of us Ikarians to be found in high-end restaurant settings.
From my first sip of Binikos' Oceana, a concoction of vodka infused with fjallagros (an Icelandic lichen), citrus and serrano pepper, I felt instantly simpatico. The Oceana was seductive and sea-like in flavor, deep, with hints of iodine from the seaweed garnish. He had captured the spirit of Oceana and of Greece in a long drink, one that, I must confess, went down in an unusually short time. I drank three Oceanas. Then I floated across the bar to ask Binikos for two things: an interview and a little cocktailian relief for the unprecedented financial horrors facing the land of our ancestry. He granted both with true Greek generosity.
Conceptual quaff
Binikos is also a conceptual artist who works in various media and sees the cocktail as a work of art, too. "Conceptual art tends to be ephemeral," he says. "Obviously a cocktail is very ephemeral, but I try to fashion my concoctions to surprise and excite the customer."
Sometimes his cocktails are more daring than arousing, such as the one he tried to make with the dried blood of his friend, the artist Marina Abramovic, for her 60th birthday party at the Guggenheim. Prohibited by the museum from serving it, he asked Abramovic to sleep on a handful of red pepper powder for a week so that it would "absorb her aural energy," which he then mixed into the drink. I haven't tasted the Abramovic cocktail, but I have tasted others created by Binikos, delicious quaffs made with tinctures, unusual herbs, spices, unknown to me liqueurs and more. "If a barman is like a cook," says Binikos, "a mixologist is like a chef, creating from a palette of flavors, not merely executing a recipe."
So what would his palette of flavors be for the Greek debt drink, I wondered. "Metaxa 7-star brandy," for sure, he says, "because it is one of the best-known Greek spirits in the United States, but also because one of the main herbs used to flavor it is bay leaf, which is supposedly what the very Oracle of Delphi chewed on, apparently for its intoxicating properties, in order to predict the future." The other main ingredient is Kitro, a citron-flavored distillation from the Cycladic island of Naxos, which, according to Binikos, "is a very powerful place with very strong energy and tremendous history." In antiquity, Naxos was home to several important temples dedicated to Apollo, the god of light and enlightenment, and to Demeter, the goddess of Earth and rebirth.
Every cocktail has a name. Binikos christened his Greek debt drink Lithy, which means a heavy, deep state of forgetfulness (from whence the English word "lethargy" derives). As a metaphor, he notes, it means "to carry something across, or to transfer, as in carrying the country across the abyss to start a new chapter."
Binikos' Lithy is meant to work as "a magic potion to help you untangle your mind, forgive and forget the dark side of the past, then move forward to a new beginning." But there is a caveat: He insists on just one Lithy per imbiber, Greek or not, lest you forget so much you stop dealing with reality. The Greek prime minister surely is dealing with reality; whether his countrymen are remains to be seen.
Lithy
Created by Ektora Binikos, mixologist at Oceana, New York City
Ingredients
2 ounces Metaxa 7 stars
1 ounce Naxos Kitro liqueur or any other citron-flavored distillation
½ of simple syrup
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
2 cardamom seeds
2 dashes Angostura bitters
¼ ounce egg whites
bergamot orange zest or a combination of lemon and mandarin zests
Preparation
- Muddle the cardamom with bitters and Kitro and add a small amount of bergamot zest in a shaker.
- Add the other ingredients, shake very well with ice and strain into a coup glass.
- Grate a little bergamot and add two drops of Angostura bitters
Diane Kochilas, the food columnist and restaurant critic for Greece's largest newspaper, Ta Nea, is also a culinary teacher, restaurant consultant and award-winning cookbook author.
Photos, from top:
Lithy cocktail.
Mixologist Ektoras Binikos.
Credits: Courtesy of Ektoras Binikos
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