When the Marie Antoinette approaches a table at French bistro Le Veau d’Or, it instantly grabs guests’ attention with its shapely tower of pebble ice and playful raspberry perched on top. And while its three-layer ombré that cascades from fuchsia to Barbie pink to white is unmissable, what’s not apparent to the naked eye is the cocktail’s equally layered history. The mountainous drink is actually a riff on a riff with some serious cocktail cred. To dive into the inspiration of this eye-catching concoction, VinePair tapped Sarah Morrissey, bar manager at the newly revived Upper East Side institution.
Morrissey shares that the drink’s roots can actually be traced back to a classic Bramble, traditionally made with gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, crème de mûre, and blackberries. She was first introduced to the build by her mentor and late cocktail legend Sasha Petraske at Long Island City’s Dutch Kills.
“His version was much more simple with just gin, muddled blackberries, and crushed ice,” Morrissey says. “Basically like a Daiquiri spec, but with gin. He would whip-shake it really quick, pour over crushed ice, then place a blackberry on top with a straw. To me, that’s what a Bramble is.”
This spin on the original Bramble served as Morrissey’s inspiration for her new creation at Le Veau d’Or. Though that build’s ingredients barely resemble those included in the Marie Antoinette, its overall concept remains intact: lots of berries and lots of ice. So, why swap gin out for agave spirits?
Morrissey says that while designing the cocktail menu at Le Veau d’Or, she was missing a tequila or mezcal drink. And since the restaurant reopened in the heat of summer, her mind went straight to the refreshing and quaffable Bramble. “It’s terrifyingly easy to drink.”
Though the drink’s history is dense, its build is quite simple, and solid technique helps achieve its stunning layered look. Morrissey first plucks out the softest, ripest raspberries from the pack — saving the more tart, perky berries for garnish — for the drink’s base, muddling them slightly in the bottom of the glass before adding crushed ice. After that, lemon juice, almond and rosewater orgeat, cacao, and tequila or mezcal are whip-shaken together and poured over the ice, creating the build’s middle layer. More crushed ice gets heaped on top to create the cocktail’s crown, which is finished with a single raspberry and spritzed with rosewater through an atomizer.
But the layers just keep coming. The drink’s name is also a play on its flashy appearance: It’s long been rumored that the coupe glass was modeled after Marie Antoinette’s breast, and though that myth has been busted, Morrissey thought a decadent, icy mound topped with a pointy, pink berry would be a playful tribute to the lore. It’s a decadent drink to behold — and too crushable to admire for long.
