13 May 22 - 28, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents May celebrates cocktail and food culture from the ‘50s. Think meatloaf and pigs in a blanket washed down with a Don Draper dirty martini. And Apothecary might be the only place we’d actually try a cocktail called Sunday Supper, which is a green bean casse- role in drink form. “We were talking bout what drinks rep- resent America in the ‘50s and the green bean casserole came up,” says Tanner Agar, owner and creative director of Apothecary and Rye. One of the bartenders, Mitch, built a clever layered cocktail with foam on the top that represents the creaminess of the sauce, along with the core ingredients: green beans and mushrooms. When asked what it actually tastes like, Agar offers an admittedly unsatisfactory an- swer: “The easiest way to describe it is green bean casserole.” But people don’t want to drink green bean casserole, I countered. “Yeah, well, people said they didn’t want to drink butter curry or Tom Kha soup,” Agar says, implying that after they tried it, they did. “There’s a friendly rivalry amongst the team here to say, ‘Well, if you could get them to do that, let me see what I can do next.’” That’s fair enough considering a bartender at sister-concept and neighbor Rye, Julian Shaffer, was awarded the Michelin Guide Texas 2024 Exceptional Cocktails Award in 2024. They know cocktails — officially. I stopped by in mid-April for a sampling of a few drinks. Being in a dirty martini mood, we ordered the Lunch with Don Draper with gin (or vodka if you’d like), a house brine, black pepper and celery bitters. The glass wore a scarf of thyme and rose- mary salt. Even better, however, were the dirty martini deviled eggs. The drink menu of the ‘50s isn’t just dirty martinis, though, as Agar explained that time period saw the rise of Tiki culture. “So the ‘50s menu is really formatted into two parts, and the first part is the American Dream [green bean casserole],” he says. “World War II has ended, and you’re coming home. This is obviously the Baby Boomers. We’re going to have peace and we’re going to have prosperity. And then the second half of the menu is about Tiki culture, which also exploded as a func- tion of World War II.” The Happy Talk is a take on the Polyne- sian classic Dole Whip, made with “navy strength gin and rum,” pineapple, passion fruit, basil, cardamon dram and vanilla. Agar explains that his team spends months working on recipes, getting the fla- vors, textures and presentation just right. Bartender Moise Zamora spent months on the Dole Whip-in- spired drink and Agar says it’s one of his favorites. Is there a risk in changing the menu so often? Could that alienate cus- tomers? Does Dal- las like to be surprised with new cocktails? Agar admits they get a lot of customers who come back for the tried—and—true, the full drink menu is still available. “But on the other hand, there are people who do want to try something new and something different,” he says. “And there’s a standard we want to uphold to ourselves. And I’m glad we’re doing this sprint and putting out so many — we’ll have developed and put out 50 new cocktails in a four- month period.” The full dinner menu is a whole other story. The Cacio e pepe with hand-rolled egg yolk pasta was nothing short of a dream, as was the ocean trout swimming in a coconut saffron lobster bisque. For the next few months, Apothecary will continue to travel through the decades. June welcomes a menu based on classics from the ‘70s, July is the ‘90s, and in August, they’ll have a best-of menu from each month. But once fall arrives, they’ll have a new slate of cocktails at the ready. Lauren Drewes Daniels The Don Draper dirty martini pairs perfectly with the dirty martini deviled eggs. City of Ate from p12 ZAMORA SPENT MONTHS ON THE DOLE WHIP- INSPIRED DRINK AND AGAR SAYS IT’S ONE OF HIS FAVORITES
