Gone are the days of Bloody Marys and mimosas ruling over the brunch cocktail kingdom.
There’s a new trend in mixology, and it involves everyone’s go-to breakfast choice: cereal.
The breakfast cereal cocktail builds off of the concept behind the White Russian, which is essentially a combination of vodka, coffee liqueur and cream. The stronger, more biting taste from the alcohol is cut by the creamy flavors of the latter ingredients. Vodka can be substituted for any other type of liquor, depending on the flavor profile the drink is attempting to create.
Photos courtesy of Jessica Williams
Recent trends seem to reject the idea that brunch cocktails should simply complement the flavors of the meal. Now, it seems that these drinks are actually mimicking the flavors of various breakfast dishes, which allows them to exist as their own separate entities. More recently, the breakfast cereal cocktail trend has migrated from large, urban centers such as New York City to the Midwest.
Oddfellows Liquor Bar in the Short North was one of the first local spots to bring the concept to Columbus. It serves three such cocktails, complete with Saturday morning cartoon character names, during its weekend brunch:
- Boris & Natasha: Cocoa Puffs-infused cashew milk, Kahlua and vodka;
- Powdered Toastman: Cinnamon Toast Crunch-infused almond milk with Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey, butterscotch schnapps and Licor 43; and
- Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm: Loopy vodka with Fruity Pebbles-infused almond milk.
All three are garnished with a few pieces of the infused cereal. The infusion process itself, says Oddfellows bartender Kyle Strategier, entails letting a bit of the cereal sit in the milk for about 10 minutes, then straining it out – just as your Cocoa Krispies once turned milk into chocolate milk.
Leah Kunnath is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
Oddfellows isn’t the only local establishment to marry breakfast cereal and alcohol. The Whitney House in Worthington, during its weekend brunch, offers boozy cereals – bowls of cereal floating in more than just milk. For instance, its Trix cereal bowl contains milk, citrus vodka, elderflower liqueur and blackberry syrup.
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