Bartender Ivy Mix Shares a ‘Big Lebowski’-Inspired Cocktail Recipe For National Tequila Day

The Dude would approve.

Bartender Ivy Mix won the Spirited Award for Best American Bartender of the Year at Tales of the Cocktail, and Wine Enthusiast has named her “Mixologist of the Year.” Through her work with Speed Rack, a bartending competition for women, Mix travels and bartends across the country while running her own Brooklyn-based, pan-Latin bar, Leyenda, which was nominated for a James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program in 2019. 

Here’s a cocktail recipe excerpted from Mix’s new book, Spirits of Latin America, in honor of National Tequila Day on Friday, July 24.

While visiting the fantastic people at Rey Campero in Candelaria Yegolé, Oaxaca, we found ourselves running through rows of Madrecuishe agave at sunset, screaming

“Karwinski!” (This is a particularly Dr. Seuss–esque family of agaves, to which Madrecuixe belongs, that grow almost like a pineapple on a palm tree–like stalk; it’s not hard to pick out their silhouettes against the sky.) I’d like to say that was before the drinking started, but really no time was before the drinking started on that trip to the arid Oaxacan South.

This drink is a riff on the White Russian—and its name, yes, is a Big Lebowski reference. Its flavors are meant to play up the fruit and light chocolate notes hiding behind the vegetal, split-wood greenness of the Madre Cuishe mezcal.

BIG KARWINSKI

1 oz Siembra Azul Reposado

1/2 oz Rey Campero Madre Cuishe Mezcal

1/2 oz Mole Negro Kalvah (recipe follows)

¼ oz oz J. Rieger & Co. Caffè Amaro

Lightly whipped cream for garnish

Cocoa powder for garnish

Add all the ingredients, except the whipped cream and cocoa powder, to a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a rocks glass with fresh ice and add a float of whipped cream on top. Dust with cocoa powder.

MOLE NEGRO KALVAH

5 oz mole negro paste

750 ml Kahlua Coffee Liqueur

MAKES 1 Quart

Combine the mole negro and Kahlua in a blender and blend until unified. Transfer to an airtight container. Store in the refrigerator indefinitely.