The Real Thing

At True Laurel in San Francisco, Nicolas Torres offers a truly seasonal bar program.

San Francisco native Nicolas Torres has been bartending in his home city for more than 15 years. “I grew up around service—when I was a child my parents owned a bakery in the Bay Area—and I got into bartending because I had service experience in mom-and-pop environments,” he says. “But I wasn’t really into cocktails until 2010, which is when I created my first menu at Zoe’s, a small cocktail bar and eatery in the Mission District. I was there for the opening, so I got to see the beginnings of a project and what to look out for.” From there, Torres bartended at different types of venues throughout the city and in 2014, he made a fortuitous connection. “I met Chef David Barzelay when I was bartending in The Hideout, which was sort of an incubator bar for a lot of industry heads that we know today,” he says. “David asked if I would help get the bar program at his first brick-and-mortar restaurant, Lazy Bear, off the ground.” Torres accepted and Lazy Bear would go on to earn two Michelin stars within its first two eligible years. 

“David and the team let me get pretty creative with the cocktail program at Lazy Bear,” Torres says. “It was the first place I worked that really had all the bells and whistles, and also had a close, local connection with the ingredients they were using.” Within another few years the Lazy Bear team, including Torres, set their sights on a new project. “At the time there wasn’t really a bar-first concept in the city that got that close with the produce and products they were using, so we had a vision to work with the beautiful California farm offerings, as well as the natural fauna that was around us, to create a true seasonal bar, not just a fresh ingredients bar,” he says. This vision became True Laurel, which opened in 2017 with Torres serving as bar director and co-owner. 

Torres runs a seasonally driven, low-waste bar program at True Laurel, with cocktails (all $17) that are light and food-friendly, such as his TL Carajillo, featuring Licor 43, cold brew liqueur, Scotch, cold brew coffee, and salt, and his Midnight Marauder, comprising sotol, pasilla mixe spirit, blackberry-infused vermouth, pepper syrup, and tomatillo, lemon, and lime juices. “Because we use a lot of culinary techniques in our drinks, we were early proponents of batching and preservation techniques,” Torres notes. “Fermentations, infusions—we love all that nerdy stuff.” 

Nicolas Torres’ Recipes

TL Carajillo

Ingredients

1¼ ounces Licor 43; 

¾ ounce Mr. Black Cold Brew liqueur; 

½ ounce Highland Park 12-year-old Scotch; 

1 ounce cold brew coffee; 

Salt to taste. 

Recipe

In an ice-filled cocktail shaker, combine Licor 43, liqueur, Scotch, coffee, and salt. Shake and strain into a chilled coupe glass.

Midnight Marauder

Ingredients

1 ounce Flor del Desierto Sierra sotol; 

¾ ounce Empirical Ayuuk pasilla mixe spirit; 

½ ounce blackberry-infused Punt e Mes vermouth¹; 

½ ounce pepper syrup²; 

½ ounce tomatillo juice; 

¼ ounce citrus blend (equal parts lemon and lime juices); 

Blackberry. 

Recipe

In an ice-filled cocktail shaker, combine sotol, Empirical Ayuuk, vermouth, syrup, and juices. Shake and strain into a rocks glass over a large ice cube and garnish with a blackberry.

¹Vacuum seal 345 grams blackberries and 750-ml. Punt a Mes and sous vide at 55º C for 2 hours. Strain through a fine chinois, being careful not to over-press the berries. 

²Vacuum seal 1,000 grams chopped sweet peppers, 100 grams chopped Shishito peppers, and 1 quart rich simple syrup and sous vide at 70º C for 2 hours, then strain through a fine chinois.