Fine Dining Whisky at Per Se

Per Se draws plenty of foodies to its elegant dining room of sumptuous little bites of things I can’t pronounce and wouldn’t think to put together (“Carre d’Agneau”: oxtail, Hen-of-the-Woods mushrooms, cipollini onions, mustard cress and smoked nettle vichyssoise).

And the food is good. Very good. But I’m always looking for a way to slip some whisky into an evening in addition to my “Oysters and Pearls” (Sabayon of Pearl Tapioca with Island Creek oysters and sterling white sturgeon caviar).

Enter The Admiral. Suave and sexy, The Admiral is a cool sip of wonderful before a long evening of eating.

My dinner mate and I were the lucky recipients of a gift of dinner at Per Se, so we decided to go ahead and treat ourselves to a couple of pre-dinner cocktails.

A good Scotch cocktail – really any Scotch cocktail – is a tough find, but scoring a light, balanced one is even harder. The Admiral pulls it off in a refreshing blend of, well, things I can’t pronounce and wouldn’t think to put together: Auchentoshan 12-year, saffron syrup, and butterscotch foam.

I would have been happy right there, but our waiter reminded us we had 9 courses of cuisine to try.

I did manage to find more whiskey, though – a tasty little bourbon vanilla chocolate square to end a delicious evening. 

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