‘It’s a cocktail a lot of bartenders know, but probably never made’ says Ben Hardy

Ben Hardy is the bar manager at the mighty Black Pearl in Fitzroy, a bar which is just some 22 years old this year — and something of a bar industry icon. And Ben is one of Australia’s finest bartenders, too, so it’s no surprise to see that he’s one of the top 25 bartenders in the Espolòn Afterlife To The Bone cocktail competition.

And, if Ben’s drink — the imaginatively titled Crusta Rhymes, The Rebellion — impresses the judges, you might even see him in Sydney as one of six finalists for the national final during Sydney Bar Week next month.

Below, lightly edited and condensed for clarity, Ben talks us about his drink, about Black Pearl, creativity and more.

Who are you? Where are we? What are you doing? Talk to me.

Hey. What’s going on? Hey, my name is Ben. I run the attic up here at Black Pearl, here in Fitzroy, Melbourne, Victoria.

Tell us about your drink.

So my drink is called Crusta Rhymes, The Rebellion. It’s a little twist on the Brandy Crusta, a cocktail that a lot of bartenders know but probably have never made and definitely never seen on a menu. That’s a big reason I picked it with the Afterlife competition being all about coming up with a forgotten classic cocktail and reinvigorating it and bringing it back to life, bringing it into the afterlife.

I liked it because it’s a citrus forward cocktail. It has a pretty fun garnish. It has a lot of elements that I really like in cocktails, and are really fun.

And I came up with the name Crusta Rhymes, and I was like, I gotta — I gotta. That’s my drink.

Did you have this name ready to go, in the back pocket? Where did it come from?

Plucked it out of nowhere. Absolutely.

Tell us what’s in the drink.

So my drink has an orgeat that I made myself. It’s made with cashew. However, I did it a little bit differently. Usually with an orgeat, you do your nut element and then add in water as well. I’ve swapped out my water for coconut water. So it’s coconut water, cashew and some sugar, a bit of orange blossom in there as well [for the orgeat].

You’ve got some fresh lime juice in there. And then I’ve added in my own homemade ingredient, which is a mandarin mistelle. I don’t know if it’s officially a mistelle, but it is a liqueur with mandarin syrup and mandarin juice and then fortified with Espolòn Blanco.

Tell us why did you choose Espolòn Reposado?

So the last ingredient in the cocktail is Espolòn Reposado. And the reason I did that is because I wanted something with a little bit of body to it — I’ve got a lot of fresh fruits and like a nutty component to my cocktail, and my cocktail is served on crushed ice too, so I wanted something with a little bit of boldness and body.

How did you go about building the recipe?

I thought a lot about what I know about agave spirits and what I’ve learned recently. Two things stood out: apologies for the name drops, but I went to a tasting with Megs Miller and she talked a lot about the soil. When the agave plant is growing, the soil has so much impact. We tried so many different things and she was like, don’t tell me what you taste. Don’t think about the nose or the palate or the finish or anything like that — which dirt do you think it grew in? Is it ashy? Is it like a dark red soil? Is it like wet mulchy or is it really dry? And it was mind blowing. You could taste these kinds of different flavours. Just like wine, where terroir is really important with growing grapes, it’s the same with agave products as well.

And the second person that taught me a lot as well was Harrison Kenny. I did a little bit time with him at Bar Planet and obviously he worked at Cantina OK, and he was telling me that when you’re making any kind of tequila or agave cocktail, fresh fruit and spice are two things you really need in there. So with those two ideas together for me that’s how I came up with this cocktail.

For those who don’t know, what exactly is a Crusta?

A Crusta as a category of cocktail is a sour style cocktail similar to a Daiquiri or a Margarita, where you have spirit, citrus, a liqueur of some kind perhaps, like an orange liqueur, and then a sweetener in there. It’s shaken. The main difference is the Crusta element to it — it generally has a sugar rim and a big piece of peel, also known as a horse’s neck, that goes around the inside of the glass. It’s a category of cocktails that’s been around for a long time, but I don’t see it on menus or anything like that.

Where do you get your creative ideas from?

I think a lot of my stuff comes from wanting to experiment with different ideas, and I work a lot on seasonality as well. What’s really cool, the link between my cocktail and Espolòn as well, is on the front of the Reposado bottle you’ve got this imagery of everyone at the markets, which is exactly what I did as well for the Crusta Rhymes. I went down to Vic Markets and I went and chatted to a bunch of the different fresh food producers there, asked what’s in season and their resounding answer was mandarins. Mandarins are it right now. And they’re the best they’re going to be at any time.

Crusta Rhymes, The Rebellion

45ml Espolon Reposado Tequila
20ml Mandarin 'Mistelle'
20ml Lime Juice
12.5ml Coconut Cashew Orgeat

Prepare a frozen rocks glass by adding a band of star anise sugar. Return the glass to the freezer.

Build all liquid ingredients into a small cocktail tin and add half a small scoop of crushed ice (approx. 50g). Using a bar spoon, swizzle the cocktail for five seconds and add liquid and ice to your prepared rocks glass. At this point wrap the mandarin horse's neck around the inside of the rocks glass, ensuring a third of the zest is left outside of the glass. Top the cocktail with copious amounts of crushed ice being careful not to disturb the star anise sugar band. Twist the remaining third of the mandarin peel into a neat twist. Add a straw and a sprig of fresh mint. Serve with a smile!

For the Mandarin 'Mistelle':
Carefully peel murcott mandarins starting at the top spiraling all they way to the bottom to leave the peel in one whole piece. Place peels with a lightly damp cloth in an airtight container and refridgerate. Slice mandarin flesh in half and remove seeds. Juice through a cold press juicer. Be sure to save the juiced flesh afterwards. Yeild from 10 mandarins is aproxx. 500mL of juice. Pass juice through a spinzall to clarify (you can use a coffee filter), bottle, and refridgerate.
Using a serrated knife, peel two navel oranges and remove pith from peel. Combine 50g of orange peel, 150g of juiced mandarin flesh, and 400g of caster sugar to a Vac Seal bag. Vaccuum seal at 25mbar and set aside for 2 hours until all sugar has dissolved. Strain citrus syrup through a fine seive and refridgerate.
In a 3L jug combine 500ml of murcott mandarin juice, 250g of citrus syrup, 1g of salt, 2.5g of citric acid, and 450mL of Espolon Blanco Tequila and stir. Fill 4 300mL bottles with your Mandarin 'Mistelle'. 15%abv. Refridgerate, best before 4 weeks from bottling.

For the Coconut Cashew Orgeat:
In a vac seal bag combine 350g of raw cashew nut and 350g of coconut water. Seal at 25mbar and set aside for 24 hours. After 24 hours open the vac seal bag and transfer nuts and coconut water into a 3L jug. Using a stick blender, blitz cashews and coconut water into a smooth mixture. Pass mixture through a fine seive into a clean 3L jug. Yeild is approx. 500g of liquid. Take 500g of coconut cashew liquid and combine with 500g of caster sugar and stir until sugar has fully dissolved. Fill 2 500mL bottles with Coconut Cashew Orgeat. Refridgerate, best before 6 weeks from bottling.

For the Star Anise Sugar:
Set a spice grinder to the fine setting. Add 3 whole star anise (approx. 5g) to the spice grinder and blitz until a fine powder. In a small air tight container combine 5g of star anise powder and 20g of caster sugar. Seal and shake until combined. Store in a cool dry place for up to a year.

For the Mandarin Horse's Neck:
See Mandarin 'Mistelle' recipe. Peels will last 48 hours stored this way but are best made fresh each day.