Most cocktails start with a bottle somebody is trying to move. This one started with Sean "Doeboy" Verrett asleep.
"It just came to me in a dream, this lavender syrup," Sean says.
He woke up, came in to Roch's Reprieve, and built the Purple Rain Rita.
The base is not complicated, and Sean will tell you that himself. "It's tequila, triple sec, basic margarita, but I put a little lavender syrup in it." That is the whole recipe. It goes together over ice in the RR rocks glass, stirred with a bar spoon, lime wedge on the rim.
Watching it come together, the color is the show. The margarita goes in pale and clear. The lavender syrup goes in behind it and the bottom of the glass blooms pink, and then the stir pulls it up through the ice until the whole drink is a soft purple that fades lighter toward the top. It looks like something you would order for the picture. It is better than that.
The purple is not an accident either.
"I went to Saint Aug, so purple is one of my colors," Sean says.
St. Augustine High School. The Purple Knights. Purple and gold, a few minutes up the road from the market. Sean grew up in the 8th Ward, right down the street from here, and he has been putting the neighborhood in a glass for a while now. The Verrett got named after him because Verrett sounds like it could be a New Orleans neighborhood the same way Manhattan is a New York one.
The lavender does less than you expect and exactly what it should. It is floral, but it sits underneath. The tequila and the citrus are still the drink. What the lavender does is take the sharp edge off the finish a margarita usually leaves and put a little perfume there instead. Sweet enough to go down easy, dry enough that you want the second one.
"Voila," Sean says, sliding it across the black napkin. "Nice and refreshing."
He has done this before. The Shoreline is a tribute to a friend. The Cajun Dirty Martini is okra juice and hot sauce strained gold. Sean does not make novelty drinks. He makes drinks that come from somewhere, and this one came from a dream and a high school.
Come sit at the bar at 2381 St. Claude Ave. Ask the Doeboy for a Purple Rain Rita. Follow him at @doeboy_cocktails_nola.