Royal Restaurant's Culinary Cocktails

Alexandria's Royal Restaurant is debuting a culinary cocktail collection that is inspired by actual menu items. The drinks use culinary techniques, fresh ingredients, and unexpected savory flavors. The collection includes a banana foster French toast daiquiri, a jalapeno cornbread martini, and a butter lettuce salad martini? This is creative with a capital C. General Manager Mackenzie Hampson and head bartender George Clark joining us with a look at all of this really cool ideas. So you came up with this, what was the idea? So I just use like my culinary background and I also use just drink ingredients, like how do you turn ingredients into drink recipes. And I'm saying like the crazy mind that came up with something amazing, you know, but how do you take say a salad and turn it into a drink? You're going to show us right? Yeah, I'm going to show you. Okay, go ahead. Let's let's see. So what I did was I took gin and with the whipped feta, I took the feta brine and actual feta cheese. Wow. And then I roasted red peppers and garlic and I let that infuse in there. And we're going to put that in the jigger. And then I took vermouth and I infused it with arugula, which is on top of there. I'm going to put that in there. And then I have a beet juice. And I made a honey. I know, right? That's very strange. Look, she's a pro. I'm a pro. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to make a mess. I promise. I'm a very new bartender. Wow. Yeah. And there you go. Yeah. And then what you do is you put this little pump in here. This is just a basic. You really are a scientist. This is amazing. Tick tock, man. Tick tock. It's amazing. Tick tock taught you? Yeah. Tick tock taught me. I love that. Okay. There we go. There you go. And so what does that do? That just kind of foams it up? Yeah, it's supposed to make bubbles. It's supposed to. Okay. Of course, because of TV and Murphy's Law, that's what's happening right now. Exactly. So you mix it all together and then you've got, what do you call the drink? Roasted beet salad. Really? Yeah. Just a roasted beet salad. I love that. Very basic. And that's not all. I mean, while we're waiting for that to foam, you've got another one here. Mackenzie, you want to tell us about that real quick? What this one is? Yeah. This is the jalapeno cornbread martini. Jalapeno cornbread is one of our staple appetizers. We eat it all day, every day. People come in for it. They love it. So what Joyce did is she infused a reposado tequila with corn husk and jalapeno. Can I pour it in here? Yeah, absolutely. Yes. Pour right in there. We have our miso cordial and then we have our honey corn butter syrup. This is insane. And just dump it all in, right? Just dump it all in. I know we're supposed to shake it, but I'm afraid of shaking things because I don't want to make a mess. We're going to add two more things here, just a little bit. Yeah. We've just got some triple sec for a little bit of orange. Wow. The jalapeno cornbread, as you see right up here, has a miso orange butter and just a little bit of lime juice. Yes. Thank you. I've done it a few times. A few times. All right. You've got to bartend before you manage it. Is the idea that you have the cocktail with the actual food item or are they completely separate? Choose your own adventure. If you want to drink your menu, you know, have a little bit of a liquid diet, you can just get the cocktail. If you want to pair them to see how they go together, you can get both. I love this. You are amazing. I mean, to come up with ideas like this is fantastic. The Royal, you guys are in Alexandria. Yes. Do you have another location as well? Just the one. Okay. And you're open for lunch, breakfast? Breakfast, lunch, dinner. We open at 8 a.m. weekdays, 7 a.m. on the weekends, open until 10 and 11 at night. And you do brunch. We've got great brunch. I was going to say. Great brunch and an amazing dinner, happy hour every day of the week. Could you do a pizza drink? We could. Joyce, what do you think? I could. I could do anything. Okay, that's a challenge. I think a pizza drink. She can do anything. If you promise to come and see me, tell him I'll have a pizza drink. You've got to come back. Okay. So has this thing formed yet or has it given up on you? It's given up on me. It wants to. Can you put that right in the shaker? Right in. That's okay. This is our show. We jump right in. It's fine. Thank you guys so much. Joyce is going to give it a little shake. Oil and Alexander, check them out. They've got amazing food, amazing drinks.