L'Espalier: Ratpacks and Mad Men II

This past March, I attended one of L'Espalier's Cheese Tuesday events.  I went with two of my girlfriends who adore cheese as much as I do.  We had a wonderful time and I of course blogged about this memorable dining experience afterward!  After reading my blog, Megan of Delicious Dishings went to the following month's Cheese Tuesday and she also wrote about her experience on her blog.  At the time, Megan and I had never even met but since then, we've become fast friends and find ourselves attending a lot of fun food events together!

A few months ago, I received an unexpected email and letter from L'Espalier thanking me for writing about my dining experience.  I was obviously surprised because a lot of restaurants don't reach out to food bloggers in this manner.  In the letter, the folks at L'Espalier also sent a gift certificate for me and a guest to attend one of their Top Shelf events.  I was completely floored and I reached out to Megan to see if she had received something similar.  When Megan told me that she also received the same gift certificate, we decided to head to an event together and to bring our significant others along!

And this long story is how the four of us found ourselves at L'Espalier on Thursday evening.  When we arrived in the salon, we found that the house sommelier, Kate Moore, was already hard at working preparing for the evening.

I was delighted to find a record player crooning 1960's tunes as Kate explained the evening's journey.

Each month, L'Espalier hosts a Top Shelf event where guests indulge in some delicious cocktails and learn about the history of each beverage.  Kate explained her new found love for the show, Mad Men, which resulted in this evening's theme.  The cocktails would all be classic drinks from this 1960s era.

First up, we sipped on a Vodka Gimlet - 1/2 oz. Belvedere vodka, 3/4 oz lime, and 1/2 oz simple syrup.  

Since vodka is probably my favorite liquor, I could have happily sipped on this all evening!  Each cocktail is paired with a tasting from L'Espalier's Chef de Cuisine, James Hackney.  Our first bite were "bagel" macaroons with a salmon mousse filling.  This little bite was so light and airy.  My only complaint was that I wish there were more as I could have easily eaten a dozen of them!

We were then onto the second cocktail, the Perfect Manhattan - 1 1/2 oz Old Overholt rye, 1/2 oz sweet vermouth, 1/2 oz dry vermouth, and a splash of Regan's bitters.

Now, I'm not someone who would typically drink anything with rye in it but this drink was so smooth that I managed to sip through about half of it.  Of course, the best part was nibbling on the cherry that had soaked up all of the liquor in it!  This cocktail was paired with a lamb wellington.

I loved this little bite a lot and realized that I've never actually eaten a beef wellington before.  I've got to remedy this immediately!  Bret and Jeff (Megan's boyfriend) especially loved this dish and both wanted entree portions of this!  Speaking of the men, I did coerce them into a photo that evening!

We were then onto our third cocktail, which was the Smoky Martini.  

This looked like your typical traditional martini, but it had a very smoky twist - 2 1/2 oz Bombay gin, splash of Laphroaig, lemon twist.  Laphroaig is a smoky whiskey and a little went a long way.  Bret loved its smokiness but the rest of us could only manage a few sips.  The martini, however, paired well with a perfect bite of mushroom risotto.  The smoky whiskey definitely brought out the earthy flavor of the mushrooms.

We were onto our fourth and final cocktail of the evening -  a beautiful Sidecar - 1 1/2 oz Cognac, 3/4 oz Triple Sec, 3/4 oz lemon juice.

This drink was both fruity and sweet with the sugar rim that I could have drank way too many of them!  This cocktail was paired with a spicy shrimp tail atop a bed of King crab and kimchi.  The spiciness helped balance out the sweet drink.

 I am not a cocktail aficionado but it was really great to learn about these classic cocktails and to taste L'Espalier's twist on some of these drinks.  If you are a cocktail lover, this is definitely an event you would love to attend.

On a more personal note, the four of us had a great time chatting and it was wonderful to finally introduce our other halves to each other.

I'm looking forward to more wonderful nights like this in the future!

Thanks again to L'Espalier for inviting us to their Top Shelf Event.

L'Espalier is located at 774 Boylston Street, Boston, MA.  To learn more about their Top Shelf events and other great monthly happenings, check out their events page here.