Jentri Colello
The bar menu at the Wise restaurant at HotelRED, 1501 Monroe St., features mostly standard cocktails. There’s a mule, a cosmopolitan, an old fashioned. If those don’t excite you, wait for a new menu, slated to be released in March.
But a fanatical cocktail seeker can always find something curious. I set my sights on the Orange Julia. I was skeptical at first, because I never order cocktails that contain orange juice. To my palate, OJ tastes too thick and dull to blend well with alcohol. I like it with breakfast waffles.
I decided to try the drink anyway, because the server told me that its principal ingredient, Ancho Reyes chile liqueur, scares some people off. I get that: The cosmopolitan is popular precisely because it’s sweet and goes down without a fight.
But the Orange Julia turned out to be surprisingly balanced. The orange juice is both enhanced and offset by lemon. In combination with the splash of soda, the chile liqueur creates a subtly bubbly burn at the back of the throat. (In fact, some people like Ancho Reyes served neat, or as a subtitute for rum in a daiquiri. Cocktails are anything goes these days, and there are really no rules.)
I do think that fresher orange juice would have made it better. But then, the bar may not have been typically well stocked. I showed up during the Super Bowl, when most of the rest of Madison was home, praying at the altar of the NFL. Thanks to the Wise for staying open, and pleasantly surprising me.
