A 'Tequila Sour' with Whey Bar's Jamal Hassan

In celebration of Eater's first-ever Cocktail Week, bartenders at five PDX hotspots agreed to shake up a special Eater Cocktail, just for us (and you — they're available on the menu all this week). Every day we'll highlight a new creation... today, we check in with Whey Bar's Jamal Hassan.

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At Ox's neighboring Whey Bar, bar manager Jamal Hassan gets his Eater Cocktail inspiration from a recipe made on-the-fly. "I was working one night and talking to a gentleman who wanted a Pisco sour-type drink, but said he really liked tequila," Hassan says. To create the tequila-fan's drink, essentially a tequila sour "with a few liberties," Hassan reaches for Benedictine in lieu of sugar or syup. "I've been playing around with Benedictine lately — it's a really great sweetening agent," Hassan says. "It's sweet enough to be the sweet element in a cocktail, but not so sweet that it's going to overpower it. I think all the herbaceous notes in the Benedictine play really well with the tequila."

For the "Tijuana Monk" (a reference to the French abbey-dwellers that supposedly created the liqueur), Hassan emulsifies egg whites with Reposado tequila, Benedictine, a splash of Demaura bitters, fresh lemon and fresh lime. The cocktail's available on the Whey Bar menu right now, for $9.
· All Previous Whey Bar Coverage [Eater PDX]