Top 10 New Things to Put in Your Drink in 2010

We’ve certainly never been against drinking here at ES — it just traditionally takes a back seat to eating. However, in the last year we’ve found ourselves getting more and more excited about cocktails — because every time we go out we discover our favorite ingredients have migrated from the plate to the glass. From fruits and vegetables to spices and more, here are our top 10 favorite new things to mix in our drinks.

10. Saffron

Not just for paella anymore, the Spanish spice has started showing up in cocktail glasses, too. Saffron Restaurant and Lounge in Minneapolis has mixed the pricier-than-gold flakes into saffron-mango mojitos, saffron-blood orange martinis, and their current offering, the gin-based Saffron Rose. Tulio, an Italian restaurant in Seattle, recently introduced The Venetian — a vodka cocktail poured over an orange-y saffron ice cube. For those experimenting at home, the folks over at Video Jug have a video on how to mix a saffron vodka martini. (Tulio photo: Evan Johnson)

9. Beets

It’s hard to make a drink look more dramatic than when filled up with bright red beet juice, as in the beet sangria at New York’s Tailor or the Beetnik, a vodka-ginger-beet concoction served at Crested Butte, Colorado’s Dogwood Cocktail Cabin. Meanwhile, the gals at The Humble Kitchen have a recipe for their own tequila-based Beetnik. (Dogwood photo: eenwall)

8. Mole

Mexico’s spicy-sweet chocolate treat is making the surprising transition from tamales to cocktails via Bittermens Bitters newest product, Xocolatl Mole Bitters. A neat way to add quite a substantial kick to any drink, the mole bitters are showing up in new cocktails like the tequila-based Chipilo at Brooklyn’s Buttermilk Channel and several options at Manhattan’s Death + Co. (Photo: Vidiot)

7. Sriracha

Every Top Chef contestant’s favorite secret ingredient can save a cocktail menu too, as in “El Scorcho,” a fiery mix of habanero infused vodka, sriracha, and jalapeno foam at Bend, Oregon’s Blacksmith restaurant. The sauce also makes a great replacement for Tabasco in bloody Marys — the blog White on Rice Couple has a great recipe, and if you want to get super-serious, check out their instructions on how to make sriracha form scratch. (Photo: White on Rice Couple)

6. Chinese Five Spice

Another ingredient Chinese chefs may be shocked to discover in American cocktails, C5S is showing up both as a garnish, as in the Fortune Teller drink served at the Surrey Hotel’s new Bar Pleiades in New York, and as the basis of a drink, such as Imbibe magazine’s Five-Spice Fizz. (Photo: Bar Pleiades)

5. Okra

Classic New Orleans bars have long slipped okra juice into their bloody Marys; lately we’ve seen the whole okra replacing celery as a bloody Mary garnish at the Ace Hotel NY’s new Breslin Bar and Dining Room, and perhaps more ambitiously, as the basis of blogger Wine by Benito’s amazing Okratini. (Photo: Wine by Benito)

4. Smoked Coke

Poor Coca-Cola keeps getting pushed out of classic cocktails to make room for all these fancy-pants ingredients, but don’t cry for it yet — chefs have found a way to class up the brown stuff, smoking cola syrup over wood before mixing it into drinks, as in the Hobo’s Cola at Baltimore’s new B&O American Brasserie. (Photo: B&O)

3. Maple Syrup

Forget simple syrup — several of the best cocktails we’ve tasted recently go with the real deal — gooey Vermont maple syrup. Red Star Tavern in Portland, Oregon mixes it into the Whiskey-based Applejack Rabbit; Chicago’s The Drawing Room serves a Maker’s Mark-maple-ginger-vanilla-orange concoction known at The Nooner; and perhaps most lethally, the Miss American Pie served at Alibi in Boston drops it in with Sam Adam’s Oktoberfest and apple vodka. Check out more maple-based recipes at The Kitchn. (Red Star photo: Lemmy Cooper, Nooner: The Drawing Room)

2. Figs

You don’t get much more meal-in-a-cup than mixing sweet/savory figs into your cocktail. Acadia in Portland, Oregon amps up their Old Fashioned with both fig infused bourbon and fig molasses, while Brooklyn’s The General Greene offers the Old Fig — bourbon, bitters, fig puree and orange. Mark Sexauer’s Cocktail Blog has instructions on whipping up a fig puree at home.  (Photo: Mookie Luv)

1. Egg Yolks

If the most widespread drinking trend of 2009 was throwback egg white cocktails, then the biggest food trend had to be putting a runny fried egg on top of every dish. But why use the whites in drinks and save those beautiful yolks just for food? Bars like Chicago’s the Violet Hour and New York’s Milk & Honey are already adding whole eggs to their cocktails, a move we’re hoping to see more of this year. Check out Umamimart for a primer from Paystyle on Flip drinks, classic cocktails that don’t let the yolk play second fiddle. (Photo: Vanessa Bahmani)

What other out-there ingredients are you seeing/mixing in your drinks? Feed us back!

More on cocktails:

Three Inspired Cocktails at NYC Hotel Bars [Oyster Locals]

9 Places to Party Like It’s 1929 [Budget Travel]

Coo-Coo for Coquito [Endless Simmer]