To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

At Nick and Toni's Cafe on the Upper West Side, three trends come together in one lovely drink.

The first is the rise of an old-fashioned cocktail called the Negroni. In the current issue of Edible Manhattan we profiled its revival at bars like this one. A mix of gin, sweet vermouth and the bittersweet, bright red Italian spirit called Campari, it's easy to make. But at Nick and Toni's, Richard Scoffier adds an extra step. Like other bartenders around town, he's now putting some drinks in barrels used to age bourbon at Tuthilltown distillery just north of the city.

"You make a giant cocktail and you put it in the barrel. It's about nine and half liters," explains Scoffier. "So I make a Negroni, which is just equal parts Campari, gin and Vermouth, and you live it in the barrel for eight or nine weeks, ten weeks. Then you just sort of taste it through the process and understand when it's sort of done, when it's not changing anymore. Then you have a barrel aged Negroni."

Scoffier ages his Negroni for the same reason you'd barrel age whiskey, he says. It mellows things out in a good way.

"It sort of comes together," says Scoffier. "You don't taste gin, Campari and Vermouth. It almost becomes a different drink, it smooths out quite a bit in the oak. The edge is taking off the Campari, the sweetness of the vermouth is taken down, it sort of morphs into something else. And it is really interesting to taste the aged one next to a fresh one that you make, because it's a totally different animal."

The last trend inside this cocktail: Seneca Drums Gin from Finger Lakes Distilling. Like a growing number of bartenders, Scoffier tries to stock as many New York State products as he can. And to read about many of them, be sure to check out Edible Manhattan's current alcohol issue online at ediblemanhattan.com.