Tapping creativity at the Underdog Inn

THE uninitiated might assume that cocktails on tap are necessarily simple concoctions, pared down to suit their mode of delivery. Underdog Inn’s selection – with ingredients ranging from honey ginger and whey to roasted chicory and butternut cream – should swiftly banish this assumption.

A board behind the bar lists 12 draught cocktails, ready to be released from a gleaming array of taps below. The taps themselves are in line with Underdog Inn’s multilayered concept: an Irish tavern in New York City “invaded by the street”, as bar manager Lee Rosli puts it.

Opened last November, the back-alley space off Gemmill Lane retains the graffitied wooden walls of the previous tenant, a burger bar – but adds framed black-and-white photographs and prints of 1980s NYC artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Plump leather couches line the walls, while wooden tables fill the central space. Underdog Inn is first and foremost a restaurant, with a nose-to-tail menu ranging from chicken and black garlic sausage to smoked beef neck with kimchi; sides include bone marrow mash and smoked carrot with ricotta.

The cured and smoked flavours go particularly well with agave and whisky, says Lee – which is why those spirits dominate the stepped showcases on either side of the line of taps.

As the focus on food requires more efficiency bar-side, the dozen draught cocktails save preparation time and “give a lot more room to have conversations with the guests”, he adds. Drinks on tap are also easier to sample: “If a customer is unsure, we can just say ‘Here you go – try it’.”

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The bar’s retro hip-hop vibe extends to the drinks menu, presented within the faux-weathered pages of a comic about NYC music scene legend DJ Kool Herc.

There are half-a-dozen “Fresh & Bright” options, including two carbonated highball-style drinks. The High Baller features American whiskey and smoky scotch, sweetened with shrub; the Pez Dispenser, named for a Basquiat painting rather than the childhood candy itself, includes peanut butter rum, blanco tequila, and lemon myrtle tea.

The other cocktails on tap are nitro-charged or use mixed gas; instead of being fizzy, the draught delivery “opens up the flavours” and gives them a creamier texture. The recipe is the same as that of a fresh cocktail, yet the experience isn’t, says Lee. “Same specs, but you can feel the difference.”

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Some cocktails stream from the tap but are then jazzed up with tableside modifiers. Lee explains: “Everyone has different preferences for these cocktails.”

Only If You Want It, for instance, is a kiwi margarita served with a nori furikake rim. It comes with three dark-glass dropper bottles – Lee recommends two or three drops at a time – of salt, chipotle, and a “fake lime” acid mix (fresh lime would introduce sediments, which don’t play well with the taps).

On the “Strong & Slow” half of the menu is the bar’s martini, served dry so “you can turn it as dirty or wet as you want”, says Lee. Its modifiers are umami bitters, playing the role of olive brine; rosso vermouth, to turn it wet; and the drier vermouth bianco.

That half of the menu also includes whisky-based The Memory, with homemade mead and green apples; and the Black & Yellow, where rum, coffee liqueur and sherry meet the aforementioned roasted chicory and butternut cream. Draught cocktails may improve efficiency, but they don’t have to sacrifice complexity.

Pez Dispenser 35 ml blanco tequila 90 ml lemon myrtle tea 5 ml peanut butter rum 5 ml Midori 5 ml house citric blend 10 ml simple syrup