Oakland, Berkeley, And East Bay News, Events, Restaurants, Music, & Arts
Best of the East Bay 2011
Freshest Cocktails
Farmer's Market Cocktails at Easy Lounge
Fresh means new, fresh means hip, and, in the agricultural sense, fresh means just-picked at the peak of taste and nutrition. Easy Lounge's farmers' market cocktails are all three. Sufficiently institutionalized after four years, the popular Saturday-afternoon event is now one of the bar's biggest draws. Every week, staff head over to the nearby Grand Lake Farmers' Market for fresh fruits and other produce to incorporate into inventive cocktails like the Heart of Stone, made of gin and Orgeat syrup with nectarine juice and lemon; and the No Knock, made of tequila with watermelon juice, Serrano pepper simple syrup, and lemon. Three or four new custom concoctions are offered every Saturday, with remarkably few repeats — even during the winter, when preserves sometimes stand in for whole fruit. Weekly DJs and bar snacks like kettle corn, also from the market, help keep the scene fresh.
