TASTE: BREAKFAST COCKTAILS + HAPPY HOUR is a real thing at Little City Luncheonette
Little City Luncheonette, the new sibling Albany Ale & Oyster, is open Tuesday to Sunday from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. for comfort eats + blue plate specials. That hasn’t stopped G.M. and bartender Renée Matthews from crafting a killer cocktail list with a weekday happy hour from 7 to 9 a.m.
Words: Susie Davidson Powell
Photos: Nick Lee/The Dishing
Location: Little City Luncheonette, Albany, N.Y.
GM Renée Matthews “wanted to have more cocktail options than just the brunch titans—the Bloody Mary, the mimosa” and started to think “about playful ways to incorporate a brunch vibe or a breakfast ingredient like jam or yogurt into our drinks.” The result at Little City Luncheonette is a hard to resist selection of house cocktails like the Breakfast Margarita with tequila and Earl Grey citrus jam, the clarified Parfait Punch, a Bloody Mary with housemade everything bagel seasoning and aquivit and a Beer-Mosa, which for the uninitiated is Little City lager with grapefruit juice, a splash of Campari and a tajin salt rim. Non-alc gets in on the action with a stellar selection of Dr. Browns sodas and zero-proof options.
The cocktail: BREAKFAST MARGARITA
The ingredients: Tequila, fresh lime, kumquat liquor, & Earl Grey citrus jam
The inspiration: “I was thinking about this breakfast martini I’ve been seeing places and online which typically uses an orange marmalade. I wanted to try my hand at a jam with a layer of flavor besides citrus, and so landed on some sort of tea steep. After the earl grey jam was made, the pivot to using tequila and calling it a margarita instead of a martini was purely taste oriented. I love me a margarita.”
The Build: Salt rim on a rocks glass, if that’s what you like. All liquid ingredients into a shaker with a teaspoon of Earl Grey jam. Shake and strain over a rocks glass with ice. Garnish with a lime.
The Cocktail: Parfait Punch
The Ingredients: Vodka, pomegranate, honey syrup, Greek yogurt, & blanc vermouth
The Inspiration: I feel like I’ve been making milk punches on and off for a million years now. I used to make gallons of it for parties or just weekend summer service at Lil Deb’s. And I love a good baby girl yogurt parfait in the morning and so wondered if I could clarify a milk punch with yogurt the same way I would with milk or coconut milk. It worked and everything kind of fell in to place. The guys in the kitchen make their own yogurt which I’m using in the punch in addition to a honey syrup made with honey harvested by one of our bartenders, Nina, making the ingredients cool and local.
The Build: Mix vodka, juices, syrup, and other spirits. Add yogurt and stir until it isn’t entirely blended but looks a little more opaque in color. Refrigerate over night and then strain through cheesecloth. Serve over a big cube if possible.
—> Read our Early Look Intel on Little City Luncheonette here.
