Señor Brown Cocktail Recipe

A smoky mezcal highball made with tart apple soda is a very good thing indeed. [Photographs: Michael Dietsch]

Made with mezcal and apple soda, this is a seemingly simple drink, but that simplicity masks a surprising complexity. The smoky mezcal offers a savory quality that unfolds on your tongue, and the apple soda provides a bracing tartness to brighten the drink and balance the mezcal.

The drink is the vision of Portland bartender and writer Jacob Grier, who developed it for the menu at Mi Mero Mole. Grier uses Sidral Mundet's bright green sour apple soda. While the Mundet sweet apple soda (pictured here) works fine, the sour is worth seeking out—it's a better choice to cut through the richness of the mezcal.