Toast Shakespeare festival with Viola’s Disguise

Cate Gibbs could have fooled me.

The 22-year-old server and part-time bartender at Ashland’s Winchester Inn devised the winning cocktail for a local competition celebrating Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 75th anniversary. Despite Gibbs’ tender age and relative inexperience, her “Viola’s Disguise” beat out creations from more than 20 Southern Oregon mixologists.

“It was everything we asked for,” says Diane Paulson, owner of Ashland’s Cascade Peak Spirits, producer of Organic Nation gin and vodka.

“It was simple, it was tasty and it had a great little name.”

Gibbs will be honored at 4:30 p.m. Friday at Ashland Springs Hotel, along with Tease’s Christopher Wells, who came up with the best cocktail featuring Organic Nation gin. This happy hour gets even happier with the winning creations available for purchase at the hotel’s Larks Home Kitchen Cuisine restaurant. Organic Nation, the hotel and other local businesses and organizations are putting on the event.

Pairing Organic Nation vodka with grapefruit juice and Cointreau, Gibbs set out to “disguise” the vodka for anyone who isn’t a fan of that spirit’s flavor. She couldn’t have planned it any better for at least one of the competition judges — me.

I’ve loved the combination of grapefruit juice and Cointreau since I tried it at the French distillery in 2001, covered in a previous post. I guess I was a little biased before the drink touched my lips, but Gibbs made me a believer in the addition of vodka and managed to impress five other judges, too.

The competition was held Wednesday at Jacksonville’s Carriage House Restaurant at The Nunan Estate, where we judges sipped through some 16 cocktails inspired by OSF and containing Organic Nation spirits. Second- and third-place honors in both the vodka and gin categories went to Elements Tapas Bar & Lounge, which entered six cocktails.

“Othello’s Fire” heated up the gin with muddled jalapeno chilies and refreshed the palate with citrus juice. Owner Chris Dennett played the bacon card, a rising trend in the food and beverage industry, with his maple-flavored martini with a candied bacon garnish. He reinterpreted the French 75 as the OSF 75 to take third place in the gin category and layered blood orange juice and curacao to suggest the coupling of Romeo and Juliet.

I actually preferred Elements’ lowest-scoring drinks. “Desdemona’s Despair” is an aperitif of muddled grapes, white wine, vodka, elderflower liqueur and Chambord that I would be happy to drink anytime. I also loved the “Prospero Fizz,” a sage-perfumed aperitif topped with an egg-white foam.

Gibbs gave no small consideration to her drink’s name and even did her homework to link the current OSF season and its production of “Twelfth Night” to the festival’s debut season. Dennett’s “Sir Francis Bacon” was singled out as the most clever cocktail name from a cast of monikers that included, among others, “Puck’s Potion,” “Muddled Mab,” “Out Damn Spot” and “Eye of the Tempest.”

Paulson is encouraging local restaurants to offer the drinks during this year’s OSF season and Dennett, for one, seems keen on the idea. So before the play, ask for Viola’s Disguise. And if you get a blank stare, here’s how to make it.

Viola’s Disguise

2 ounces vodka (preferably Organic Nation)

1 ounce Cointreau or other brand of triple-sec 

2 ounces ruby red grapefruit juice (preferably organic)

Juice from 1/2 fresh lime

1/2 fresh lime slice, for garnish

1 maraschino cherry, for garnish

Fill a cocktail shaker three-quarters full of ice. Add the vodka, Cointreau and fruit juices. Shake well and strain into a martini glass. Spear the lime slice and cherry on a pick and add to glass.

Makes 1 serving.