The Main Street Cocktail

Among Molly Wellmann’s hundreds of handcrafted cocktails, there are few simpler—and certainly none better suited for a fireside chat—than The Main Street. A beautifully modest cocktail with hints of molasses and cinnamon, it delivers a subtle chocolate creaminess that leaves you warm and refreshed, despite being served cold. “And there’s not a drop of chocolate in this,” says Wellmann, Japp’s tattooed mixologist extraordinaire. “I find that magical, this blend of flavors from The Kraken rum and the Milk Stout mixed with vanilla that ties everything together in a beautiful little bow.”

Ingredients
4 fresh mint leaves
½ ounce of vanilla simple syrup *
2 ounces of The Kraken Black Spiced Rum
¾–1 ounce Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro
Ice

Tools
1 pint glass
1 shaker
1 rocks glass

To Make
Place four fresh mint leaves in a pint glass and add the simple syrup. Do not muddle the mint. “The ice does the bruising for you,” Wellmann says. “If you muddle mint too much, it turns the drink bitter.”

Pour in the rum and fill the glass with ice. Place your shaker securely over the pint glass and shake vigorously. Strain into a rocks glass (without ice) and pour in no more than an ounce of Left Hand Milk Stout Nitro. Garnish with a mint sprig. “The stout lightens the whole drink up,” Wellmann says. “I love how it cuts through the sweetness of the vanilla and the rum, and creates that chocolate flavor.”

*To make syrup: Bring 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, and 2 split vanilla beans to a simmer, then let sit at room temperature for an hour. Strain and reserve. (Don’t have vanilla beans? Stir in 1½ teaspoons of vanilla extract for each cup of sugar and water.)

Originally published in the January 2014 issue.