What do you get when you take what would be considered an off-menu barroom dare and make some alterations? Nick & Toni’s capovolto della morte (death flip).
“The ‘flip’ category in cocktail making goes back to the 1600s and was defined as a sort of ‘sailor’s drink,'” says Chimene Visser Macnaughton, beverage director of Honest Man Hospitality, which owns and operates Nick & Toni’s, a Hamptons restaurant known for its wood-oven Italian-Mediterranean cuisine. “Unlike brunch drinks with egg whites creating froth, a flip uses a whole egg to provide a rich body and a gorgeous mouthfeel. Our capovolto della morte (loosely Italian for upside-down death) is a decadent, more sophisticated take on the death flip, which began — where else but Down Under — as an off-menu barroom dare. We kept the yellow Chartreuse, and subbed in a spicy American rye whiskey and elegant Italian amaro for the original’s ingredients.”
The cocktail is made up of Michter’s Single Barrel Straight Rye Whiskey (1 ounce), yellow Chartreuse (.5 ounce), Alta Gradazione Amario amaro (.5 ounce), rich simple syrup (.25 oz), and a Nick & Toni’s farm egg.
“Here at Nick & Toni’s, we raise our own chickens, so utilizing our very own farm eggs for this fun and wintery flip is what sets it apart,” she says.
To prepare the cocktail, combine all ingredients in a shaker, dry shake first, and then shake vigorously with bar ice. Strain everything into a chilled crystal coupe. Garnish with a shaving of nutmeg on top.
“We first launched this cocktail last winter as an antidote to Dry January — not that it’s aggressively boozy — the ingredients are beautifully balanced — but more of an opposite-of-deprivation mindset,” Macnaughton says. “The capovolto della morte is a classic flip cocktail: creamy, textural silkiness curled up with subtly spicy rye and the hotter-than-ever use of Chartreuse, finished with freshly grated nutmeg to underpin the wintery seasonal sense of the drink.”
“Guests love our N&T’s garden ingredients being part of the beverage program,” she says. “Whether it’s hard herbs like rosemary for garnish, or later in spring when our rhubarb goes into a syrup for a spring gin punch, we always get great feedback when we incorporate aspects of our food garden at the bar.”
Nick & Toni’s is located at 136 North Main St., East Hampton, and can be reached and 631-324-3550.
