Booze You Can Use

The Franklin Punches Up New Cocktails

The Franklin Mortgage and Investment Company is in the process of overhauling its cocktail list this week and changing the way it serves its punch. Aside from a couple of the cocktail hideaway’s flagship offerings - the Kensington, Dolores Haze and the Restraining Order to name a few - the majority of the Franklin’s drinks are being switched over. While its mostly a collaborative effort on the part of the entire staff, much of the fine tuning is being attributed to bartenders Al Sotack and Colin Shearn. “The process itself isn’t something we knock out in like two weeks,” managing partner Mike Welsh told Grub street. “Typically the moment that we publish a menu, we’ve already begun the next one.”

“Over the course of two to three months, we’re constantly tweaking and looking at different ways to take the blueprints of classic cocktails and make them our own,” Welsh explained. While an official menu hasn’t yet materialized, tipplers can count on as many as 23 new cocktails. In addition to the menu’s overhaul, The Franklin is also switching up how it serves punch. The bar used to serve punch in single servings and carafes that served up to four to six people. Now they are serving their selection of punches in traditional punch bowls, inspired by ornate 17th century serving vessels. “We have a 10 serving small punch bowl and a 20 serving large bowl, that we bring out to the table where it becomes the center of guests’ social scene,” Welsh said. “Everybody digs into the punch and that sort of spurs them to talk and interact with each other.”

The Franklin Punches Up New Cocktails