Though it’s fittingly called Hard Times, a cocktail available for pickup from Feast restaurant in the East Village, has springtime in its DNA, thanks to rhubarb gin. Logan Rodriguez, the restaurant’s beverage director, uses Collective Arts Rhubarb & Hibiscus Gin. There are other rhubarb gins out there, and absent the rhubarb flavor, other floral gins, especially pink gins, would work. For one drink, you need two ounces of the gin in a mixing glass, along with a half-ounce each of Campari, Pineau des Charentes or white Lillet, and grapefruit liqueur, plus two dashes of Peychaud’s bitters. Stir well with ice, then strain into a double rocks glass with fresh ice. You can garnish with a strip of citrus peel or, as I have done, a stirrer cut from a stalk of rhubarb. If you prefer, it’s sold without the ice for finishing at home.
Hard Times, $11 including truffled popcorn, Feast, 3 to 8 p.m. every day except Monday, 102 Third Avenue (13th Street), 212-529-8880, eatfeastnyc.com.
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