The Art of the Creative Constraint: How We Built the Noble Twist Cocktail Program From Scratch
There is a specific kind of panic—and subsequent thrill—that happens when a hospitality consultant is handed a playground with zero store-bought toys.
I was recently brought on to curate the summer cocktail program for Noble Twist, a wildly charming brewery, distillery, and winery serving up stellar New Haven-style pizzas in Saugatuck, Michigan. The owners are the kind of dream clients you hope for: deeply passionate, fiercely dedicated to quality, and collaborative. But they are also bound by the rigid parameters of the Michigan Liquor Control Commission.
For a craft beverage house that means - no Campari, no Cointreau, no standard Luxardo or imported Lazzaroni Amaretto. If I wanted a classic profile in a glass, I couldn't just reach for a premium bottle from the back bar; I had to invent a parallel universe version of it using Noble Twist's base spirits. It was a masterclass in creative constraints.
Fortunately, this wasn't my first rodeo under these rules. Back during my time with Anheuser-Busch at Virtue Cider, I had to build a craft cocktail program using nothing but cider as the alcoholic vehicle. I knew the tightropes. But this time, breaking into true custom cordials and liqueurs meant venturing into exciting, uncharted territory.
Secret Weapons, Liquid Alchemy, and the Lineage of a Drink
To pull this off, I looked across Lake Michigan to Chicago and heavily mined the phenomenal botanical catalog of Rare Tea Cellar. If you know, you know—their stuff is pure magic for chefs and bartenders looking to layer flavor without relying on artificial syrups.
For the menu's sweeter, nutty foundational notes, I crafted a proprietary Green Tea Amaretto. It had to carry a heavy burden: it needed to mimic the almond-marzipan depth of Lazzaroni, carry the structure of a Luxardo Maraschino, and be a little reminiscent of Orgeat. By marrying Rare Tea Cellar's botanicals with Noble Twist's neutral spirit, we built an absolute workhorse ingredient that grounds drinks like the West Side Sour and the Improved Beach House.
The true test of this reverse-engineering process, though, came when I wanted to pay homage to a cocktail deeply rooted in my own history. At Shift Drinks—the bar I used to own with my wife, Anne, and our brilliant partner Alise Moffatt—Alise ran a drink inspired by her travels through Argentina called the Palermo Viejo #2. It actually had its own family tree; her boyfriend at the time, Ansel, had run the Palermo Viejo #1 on his menu over at Free House. Alise's iteration was a stunning, bitter-elegant build of Cynar, Gin, Combier Pamplemousse liqueur, and slapped mint.
When looking at the back bar at Noble Twist, I had to pivot. The only amaro at my disposal was their incredibly beautiful house Fernet. I couldn't buy Combier, so I utilized our custom-engineered Grapefruit-Hibiscus Liqueur (steeped with RTC's Grapefruit Grove tea) to mimic that citrusy, floral sweetness.
To bridge the gap, I swapped out Alise’s gin for Noble Twist’s high-quality Rum, kept the signature slapped mint, and finished the build with one precise drop of 20% saline solution. That tiny hit of salt acts like a volume knob, perfectly tempering the aggressive, medicinal bitterness of the house Fernet and making the whole drink sing. The resulting Palermo Viejo #3 is the evolution of a recipe that means the world to me.
Technical Specs, Agave Nectar, and the Tiki Pivot
Building this program wasn’t a solo act. For six weeks leading up to the launch, the owner, Wes, and I had weekly R&D sessions to align on how to best showcase Noble Twist’s house spirits.
A prime example was handling their house agave spirit. Because it is distilled directly from agave nectar rather than crushed, cooked agave piñas, it bypasses the typical roasted, unique profile of a traditional tequila. It yields something deeply earthy, complex, and strange. Structurally, it is much closer to a French Caribbean Rhum Agricole distilled from fresh sugar cane juice, sharing that exact same prominent hogo—that beautiful, wild, earthy funk.
To demonstrate this, I set up a side-by-side tasting for Wes with a bottle of Rhum JM. Once we established that his spirit behaves like a high-end Agricole, it completely unlocked our approach to the menu. Instead of forcing a standard tequila template, we leaned into that distinct rum-adjacent funk to anchor two major menu standouts:
Via Martinique: A hyper-local, contemplative variation on a classic Martinique Ti' Punch, utilizing the agave spirit, our custom grapefruit-hibiscus liqueur, and a fresh lime coin.
Beach Playdate: A straight-up play on a very fancy tiki drink. For this one, I relied on Rare Tea Cellar’s Tropical Spiced Clementine blend. Because it’s packed with anthocyanins, it infuses the drink with a stunning, vibrant color. We built it to carry a beautiful, velvety foam top, dusted it with a sharp hint of Aleppo pepper, and let that base hogo funk ride cleanly through the back end of the sip.
Nostalgia in a Cocktail Glass: Portland to Dearborn
Every drink on this menu is a postcard from a different era of my culinary journey, reinterpreted through Noble Twist's house spirits:
Saffron Cream Soda: Years ago, I became utterly enamored with the Genmai Fizz served at the legendary Biwa, my first job in Portland, Oregon. For Noble Twist, I wanted to capture that toasted-rice grain luxury but elevate it to mirror the complex, honeyed saffron notes you get in a beautifully aged Champagne. I took organic brown rice, toasted it, and infused it into a rich cream using the traditional Persian saffron "shock" technique (blooming the saffron over cracked ice before introducing it to warmth to lock in that vibrant, brilliant yellow color and aromatic punch).
Espresso Martini Au Levant: Most espresso martinis are cloyingly sweet vodka-and-coffee-liqueur bombs. For ours, I drew straight from my childhood memories of traveling down to Dearborn, Michigan with my dad, drinking Lebanese cardamom-infused coffee, brewed in the traditional pot. We steeped Noble Twist's house coffee liqueur with cracked cardamom pods, creating a bitter, aromatic ritual in a coupe glass that pairs beautifully with their charred pizza crusts.
The Final Cut: Summer 2026
From the Kilgore Was Here (our nod to the bittersweet, bracing bartenders' handshake of an Industry Sour) to the deeply personal historical love letters laced throughout the menu, this lineup represents what happens when you refuse to let production restrictions stop you.
Look at the Campfire Gimlet, for instance. The baseline is a lime cordial technique pioneered by Jeffrey Morgenthaler—a nod to our days running bars around the corner from each other in Portland’s West End. Though he released the recipe years after I left Oregon, it was the exact foundation I needed. We infused it with Rare Tea Cellar’s phenomenal Forbidden Forest Lapsang Souchong tea. By building a quad-strength, fortified version of this smoky tea, we created a deeply complex, spirit-forward stirred gimlet that balances bright acidity, black tea tannin & campfire smoke.
And then, of course, there are the dessert cocktails anchoring the bottom of the page. Structurally, these are built almost like a botanical White Russian, reinterpreting the nostalgic roots of a classic adult float:
Sun Over Saugatuck: A direct nod to the classic "Boston Cooler"—the iconic Vernors and ice cream staple I grew up with on the east side of the state. This version features Noble Twist's complex house Genepy, combined with Boylan's Ginger Ale, local cream, and a grating of fresh nutmeg.
Moon Over Saugatuck: A darker, moodier counterpart built around their brilliant house Fernet & Boylan's Root Beer.
When you look at the final menu, you aren't just looking at a list of ingredients and prices. You're looking at six weeks of collaborative texts, custom-built liqueurs, childhood memories, and a testament to what can happen when a client trusts the process implicitly.
Stop into Saugatuck, grab a New Haven pie, and ask Wes to pour you something twisted. You won't find these flavors anywhere else on earth.
Above - Via Martinique, enjoyed by me while crushing some pizza with my sons.
