I Drank the Similar Cocktail as Taylor Swift at Spago Beverly Hills. It Made the Complete Place Shimmer.

On Saturday, January sixth, the night time earlier than she swanned into the Golden Globes awash in inexperienced sequins, inspiring limitless memes, Taylor Swift had a low-key dinner with two girlfriends at Spago Beverly Hills. 

Swept in by means of the again and seated in a secluded part away from the opposite patrons, the trio, properly into their first course, requested to maneuver right into a extra populous space. From their new perch overlooking the newly renovated bar, they may see the comings and goings of varied drink orders. 

“What’s that?” Swift requested the server, as a very putting cocktail in a glass formed like a single rose glided by. That might be the Lychee Rosé, the server knowledgeable her, describing the drink in all of its elegant particulars. That sealed the deal. Spago’s thrilling new bar program had one other feather in its cap—the Swift seal of approval. 

Swift’s each transfer is more and more documented in meticulous element—one can simply dig up precisely what she wore that night time, the small print behind the soccer wives she dined with, and the wagyu steak and off-the-menu fries that had been delivered to the desk. As a result of I occurred to be at Spago simply days after her go to, nonetheless, I acquired the thin on crucial element of the night time: the cocktail that Swift sipped.  

This month, Spago, the Los Angeles establishment that helped usher in California delicacies and made Wolfgang Puck one of many world’s most well-known cooks and restaurateurs, celebrated its forty second birthday. Spago has at all times been a buzzy scorching spot and celeb vacation spot. However 4 a long time into service, it’s now touchdown on coveted lists as one of many hottest cocktail locations in Los Angeles. 

A lot of this newfound consideration to Spago’s bar program is owed to Adam George Fournier, a 2021 Diageo World Class U.S. Bartender of the 12 months, employed at the start of 2023 because the restaurant’s first devoted bar director because it opened within the early ‘80s.

My go to to Spago was to take a look at the latest bar overhaul—each the brand new program and the large renovation of the bar space itself. The restaurant was nonetheless abuzz with Swift’s go to. 

Sitting on the bar, close to the service properly, provides you a front-seat glimpse of what the whole restaurant is ordering. One specific, eye-catching drink was going out at exceptional pace. 

“What’s that?” I requested Fournier, as he poured a golden, frothy combination into a fragile rose-shaped glass, echoing Swift’s precise inquiry a number of days prior (we’re clearly very a lot alike). I used to be knowledgeable, as Swift had been, that it was the Lychee Rosé, one of many choose cocktails featured within the Uncommon & Extravagant part of the cocktail menu, a manner for Spago “to spotlight uncommon, distinctive, or luxurious spirits,” says Fournier. 

The Lychee Rosé has “been on the menu since this previous summer time and was designed round Tequila Komos Reposado Rosa, a tequila aged in French oak ex-red wine barrels, [giving] it a singular taste profile [and color],” says Fournier, the mastermind behind the cocktail. “Basically it’s our reply to a Lychee Martini.”

The drink combines the rose-colored tequila with a house-made salted lychee cordial, manzanilla sherry, St-Germain elderflower liqueur, and contemporary lime juice for a pleasant steadiness of perfumey fruit and brine. Served in a glass formed like a rose and garnished with a number of flower petals, the drink is a knockout in each manner. No surprise Tay Tay took notice.  

“It’s a visually putting cocktail that folks ask about when it’s walked to a desk. It naturally will get requested about,” says Fournier. “There was positively an uptick in ordering after Taylor joined us,” he says. “There have been reservations of individuals coming in particularly as a result of they wished to take a seat the place she sat, and order what she had.”

The impression of getting somebody like Swift go to your institution or devour your merchandise will be game-changing for lots of companies. Her latest six-night Eras tour resulted in a projected $300+ million surge in Los Angeles County’s GDP alone. However how does it have an effect on a enterprise like Spago, a longtime famous person magnet, acknowledged as a “celeb secure area?”

“Taylor eating with us is reinvigorating [for] Spago,” says Fournier. “It completely introduces the enterprise to a technology or demographic who could have by no means heard of it, or [have] had an opportunity to expertise the restaurant. As soon as they’re within the door it’s our job to point out them that they made the fitting resolution and to maintain them coming again,” he says.

After Swift’s go to, Spago’s social media crew went to work and took the chance to repost the Lychee Rosé cocktail with extra video content material to their Instagram account. One other picture shoot can be within the works. 

The temporary thrill of sipping the identical drink because the bejeweled one could be the catalyst for some to go to Spago for the primary time, however I’ve a sense its new cocktail program would be the factor to make you come again, come again, come again. Spago, look what you made me do!