Infused With a Little Imagination

Since the late '90s, the trend has been for bartenders to create what I call "Sex and the City" drinks -- sweet, fruity concoctions that try as hard as possible to mask the flavor of alcohol. (This is why we have strawberry-flavored vodkas and melon-esque rums.) But if most of the world is crafting variations on the Cosmo for Carries and Mirandas, Derek Brown's happier mixing old-school gin martinis for Nick and Nora Charles. At Agraria restaurant on the Georgetown waterfront, Brown's back-to-the-future cocktail menu is heavy on bitters and vermouth, flavors that fell from favor decades ago but are returning to fancier bars in New York and London.

Bitters are alcohol derived from aromatic plants and roots, and for most drinkers (and bartenders), adding a dash from a paper-wrapped bottle of Angostura to an Old Fashioned or the occasional Manhattan is about as serious as it gets. Back in the 1930s and '40s, though, bitters were regularly found in many cocktails, including the martini. Sometimes tongue-curling or puckeringly tart, it's always a treat.

Brown, Agraria's general manager, made cocktails and cocktail menus at Palena and Firefly before coming to the restaurant earlier this year, but he discovered bitters on a trip to Barcelona. "There was a bar that proudly displayed an old recipe for a martini," he says. "I didn't realize that the original martini recipe had orange bitters. I didn't even know what orange bitters were, so I started looking for bitters. It's been a progression, learning more and more about how essential they are to a cocktail."

The orange bitters in Agraria's martini fall perfectly in between the botanicals of the pungent Miller's Westbourne Strength Gin and the woody Vya dry vermouth, adding a touch of citrus that's the necessary balance. Also important: By default, Agraria's martini is served "wet," with a heavy pour of vermouth. Most bars merely swirl a few drops of vermouth in their martini glasses before dumping it out.

But, Brown adds, current tastes have strayed so far from the classics that "the more we try to make drinks the way they're supposed to be made, the more send-backs we get. Like a guy orders a Belvedere [vodka] martini, and after he tastes it, he says to the bartender, 'I ordered a vodka martini, and I think you made this with gin.' We say, 'No, sir, we make it with a high-quality vermouth, and that's probably what you're tasting.' People are used to getting a martini that's just straight vodka in a glass, but that's not what we do."

"I've never made a better drink than the martini, and I don't think I will. A well-made martini is a thing of beauty. It's nice to make inventive cocktails, but these are classics for a reason." As Brown tried more commercial bitters -- the bar now stocks eight varieties -- he also decided Agraria should make its own. The house "Sunflower" bitters, used in the Agraria cocktail, are lighter and sweeter than others on the menu, especially compared with the Bronx, which uses two kinds of vermouth and orange bitters and has a sharp, tangy flavor that hits the back of your tongue like an uppercut.

That's not to say that the light-filled bar at Agraria is only for fans of retro cocktails. Half the menu is devoted to original creations, including margaritas made with prickly pear juice and the Cynthia, a smooth, delicate mix of citrus-infused vodka, the French aperitif Lillet and muddled tarragon.

Brown is leaving Agraria later this month for a position at Michel Richard Citronelle, but he says that manager Bryan Murphy will maintain the bitter-heavy menu for the foreseeable future. This is, after all, a bar that eschews apple martinis -- which Brown dubs "the pinot grigio of cocktails" -- for the Jack Rose, an obscure drink made with rich apple brandy and grenadine that's 180 degrees from the sweet, popular apple martini. "We sell a lot of them," Brown says. "When people ask for an apple martini, we tell them we don't have one -- we don't carry apple pucker -- but we can make you this. A lot of people enjoy it. I hope they go into other bars and ask for a Jack Rose. I'd like to have that problem."

Rasika 633 D St. NW; 202-637-1222 The scene: Inventive cocktails flow in the trendy Indian restaurant's small, low-lit lounge.