You know the feeling: you’ve consumed the figurative equivalent of moules marinières, pâté de foie gras, beluga caviar, eggs Benedict, tarte aux poireaux, frog legs almondine, and little quail eggs on a bed of pureed mushroom—all mixed up together in a bucket.
You are one wafer-thin mint away from bursting open at the sternum. You reach for the Chartreuse, the Underberg, the Malört—whatever stomach-settler you favor to get you up from the table after these binges of yours.
But instead, Mike Bancroft is standing there in tuxedo tails to pour you a shot of Amaro da Verde.
That’s the new spirit collaboration between Bancroft’s Co-op Sauce and Drew Fox’s 18th Street Distillery, the follow-up to last year’s Fernet Fungo. Released under their new Fractional Spirits label, it’s a boozy, herbal maceration of green rhubarb and blood orange, along with lemon verbena, mint, and angelica root, that Bancroft argues could pinch-hit for Last Word (or any cocktail impacted by the Carthusian shortage).
But it’s best taken straight and cold.
And that’s the way it’s gonna get poured when Bancroft’s Sauce and Bread Kitchen takes over the next Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop-up at Frank and Mary’s Tavern.
Bancroft and SBK partner Ann Kostroski present a menu strategically designed to test Amaro da Verde’s digestive capabilities, starting with their Beefy Cheezy: chopped dry-aged ribeye on Kostroski’s baguette, smothered in Hook’s three-year cheddar sauce.
For the vegans, there’s a VLT on Kostroski’s pan de mie, with baconized tofu skin, leafy greens, gochujang aioli, and some of the last heirloom tomatoes of the season.
And for the Stone Agers, there’s a riff on the Wisconsin wildcat, aka the cannibal sandwich: steak tartare, with sauce gribiche, and raw onions on Club crackers—which you shouldn’t think of ordering without their port wine pimiento cheese.
Along with a carrot top and radish kimchi, and Kostroski’s griddled apple custard cake with vanilla ice cream, that’s plenty to test Amaro da Verde’s ability to green-wash the collywobbles from your vitals.
It all goes down at 6 PM, this Monday, September 23, at 2905 N. Elston in herbaceous Avondale.
Meantime, there’s a brand-new autumn Foodball schedule to ponder:
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