Have You Heard the One About the Cold-Pressed Juice That Walks Into a Bar?

Meet the gentlest Green Giant, Clover Club co-owner and head bartender Tom Macy’s much-lauded cocktail, responsible for bringing vegetable-based booze to the rocks glass. The Brooklyn bar’s drink is made with muddled sugar, snap peas, tarragon, and gin—a balanced harbinger of the growing season and as fresh as a 70-degree breeze.

Looking to change up his spring menu two years ago, Macy intended to use the sugar snaps and tarragon in separate drinks. “I put them both together, and it was ‘Holy crap!’ ” he said. He described the pairing as as “really bright...[with] a familiar freshness that’s evocative of spring, but totally unfamiliar in a cocktail. That dichotomy makes them interesting in a drink.” New York cocktail doyenne Julie Reiner, Macy’s colleague, called the drink “spring in a glass.”

In 2014, with peak cold-pressed kale juice nigh, the Green Giant is no longer lonely as a vegetable-starring cocktail.

That may be partly the result of trend chasing, but the innovative drink is not as offbeat as it might seem. Vegetables work in cocktails because they offer a sweetness similiar to fruit, Macy explained, but unlike overripe summer stone fruits and berries, they bring a lively, crisp lift to a drink. It’s a cooling principle that works all the way down the produce aisle and is particularly appealing in the dog days of summer. Clover Club’s constantly changing menu has featured drinks made with celery simple syrups, beet-based shrubs, carrot juice, and a daiquiri variation made with red bell pepper.

Bartenders around the country are experimenting in similar ways. Sip a Beet Bellini at the bar at Maui’s Ko. At Erbaluce in Boston, order a Matsutake Flip, made with mushroom-infused bourbon shaken with honey, lemon, and nutmeg. Burlington, Vt.’s Juniper serves a Gibson garnished with a rotating cast of pickled veggies standing in for the standard cocktail onion. Cucumbers, by now a familiar sight in the coupe glass, are mixed with fresh kale, spinach, and lime juice—along with a slug of gin—at Los Angeles’ Oliver’s Prime. New York’s Dead Rabbit, which took home Tales of the Cocktail’s 2014 “World’s Best Drink Selection” crown, features cocktails with notes of fennel, nettles, eucalyptus, and artichoke.

Yet if vegetable-based cocktails are deemed an extension of the juice craze, it’s a bit of a red herring.

“Bartenders are not the ones juicing kale in the mornings,” Macy said. “It’s a different demographic.” No one sips a celery gimlet thinking they’re knocking back a health tonic. (Buzzkill alert: The calories from the liquor and simple syrups negate any benefits of the veggie juice, registered dietitian Maria Bella told the New York Daily Press.) But these drinks are an innovative way to celebrate the lively flavors fresh vegetables can impart. Plus: alcohol! This trend has carrots kicking up their heels.

At home, cucumber and celery are approachable entrées to the veggie cocktail world, and celery simple syrup, celery bitters, or a simple cucumber-spiked twist on the gin and tonic are all good places to start. Don’t be afraid to give the Green Giant a place on your home bar. “[Sugar snap peas] are pretty hearty, and they have a pretty high water content, so they come through like cucumbers in a drink,” Macy said. Cheers!

The Green Giant

Serves 1

Ingredients

4 sugar snap peas, plus more for garnish

1 sprig tarragon

¾ ounce simple syrup

2 ounces Old Tom gin (preferably Hayman’s)

¾ ounce lemon juice

½ ounce dry vermouth

Directions

Muddle 4 sugar snap peas and 10–12 tarragon leaves in simple syrup. Add remaining ingredients, shake with ice, and strain into a rocks glass over crushed ice. Garnish with two sugar snap peas.