WHY NATASHA VAN DUSER
ALWAYS STOCKS hER
NEW YORK CITY BAR WITH
FOUR ROSES BOURBON
Words by Colleen McNally Arnett
Photos by Vlad Levine
Natasha Van Duser loves a good cocktail as much as she loves a good story or a good shoe. As a student at New York University, she began bartending in dives to supplement her early writing career (and thrift-shopping habit), then fell in love with hospitality — so much so that she dreamed of opening a bar of her own. In 2024, her fantasy came true when she and her partner, Carlo Olcese, opened their own place in New York City’s East Village. With a name that playfully pays homage to Dorsia in the cult-classic “American Psycho,” they designed a cozy, neighborhood spot full of regulars and clever riffs on classic cocktails, but with zero pretension.
When it came to stocking the shelves, Van Duser already knew that Four Roses deserved a prime placement. “It’s definitely one of those brands that I have so many stories about,” she shares. For one, it’s her step-dad’s bourbon of choice. “I remember when I first started working in bars, he would always say, ‘Make sure that Four Roses is on the back bar.’” Today, the spirit is not only her bar’s signature whiskey, but was also featured in their inaugural OAK Manhattan — a clever take on the classic using a rotating “one of a kind” (OAK for short) whiskey. “The very first one for our opening weekend was a Four Roses Single Barrel OBSF Manhattan,” Van Duser recalls. “And it sold out way too quickly.” Now with summer winding down and autumn arriving any minute, Van Duser has created a brand-new, original cocktail: the Rose Among Brambles. This is a refreshing sipper for the season, inspired by the brand’s 138-year legacy and designed specifically to play off the classic, rich flavors of Four Roses 80-proof bourbon.
Here’s how she makes it:
Rose Among Brambles
Ingredients:
1 ½ ounces Four Roses Bourbon
¾ oz blackberry ginger honey (instructions follow)
¾ ounce lemon juice
½ ounce Calvados apple brandy
¼ ounce Amaro Sfumato Rabarbaro
Garnish: candied ginger
Directions:
Add Four Roses Bourbon, blackberry ginger honey, lemon juice, and Calvados to a shaker with ice.
Shake for 30 seconds.
Strain into a large rocks glass with a 2x2 cube (regular ice will also work).
Sink Amaro Sfumato into the bottom of the glass by pouring down the side of the glass.
Serve with a skewered piece of candied ginger.
Blackberry Ginger Honey
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups honey
¾ cup water
15 blackberries
6-inch piece of ginger, peeled and sliced
Directions:
Peel and slice the ginger.
In a saucepan, add honey, water, blackberries, and ginger.
Bring the saucepan to a boil, stirring occasionally.
Once the mixture is boiling, immediately remove from heat. Let it come to room temperature and sit, covered, for 24 hours.
Strain out the ginger and blackberries and store in a sealed plastic quart container in the fridge for up to three days.
½ ounce Calvados apple brandy
¼ ounce Amaro Sfumato Rabarbaro
Garnish: candied ginger
“It’s a play on the name Four Roses and a play on a bramble,” Van Duser explains. Considering Four Roses works so well in a Kentucky Mule, she knew ginger and citrus were a great place to start. “Some of the main notes [of the whiskey] are spice, honey, and apple, so I really wanted to pull forward those flavors,” she says. To achieve this, she added apple brandy and created a blackberry-ginger honey. The latter is also a nod to Four Roses’ Kentucky roots. “Blackberry is the official fruit of Kentucky,” she points out.
But she didn’t stop there. Van Duser’s recipe development process shows off her affinity for reading, research, and storytelling. “During Prohibition, Four Roses was one of the few bourbons that were legally served as medicinal,” she recounts, noting that the distillery was one of the precious few with a special license at the time. After diving deep into this history, she also riffed on a neoclassic cocktail known for its use of ginger and honey, as well as its cheeky, cure-all connotation: the Penicillin. While a traditional Penicillin uses Scotch, Van Duser found it serendipitous that it was invented in the early 2000s, around the same time that Four Roses was reintroduced in the United States after its mid-century pivot to Europe and Japan.
To make up for the smoky feature of Scotch whisky, Van Duser reached for Amaro Sfumato Rabarbaro (“sfumato” loosely translates to “smoke” in Italian), with the tartness of its rhubarb fruit adding just the right amount of body and depth. “The density of the amaro is going to sink instead of float, so I actually sunk it into the bottom of the glass and created this really nice layered cocktail that opens up in complexity as you drink it.”
Last but not least, Van Duser serves the drink with a skewered piece of candied ginger on top. “I believe if you garnish a cocktail, it has to have a purpose,” she adds. In this case, biting the candy while sipping the cocktail further pulls forward those ginger notes. The result is something Van Duser — who is also an avid consignment shopper and boasts an extensive shoe collection — likens to a Dior heeled Chelsea boot, particularly one she imagines styled with intricate beading and a mix of patent leather and suede.
She sees similarities in how Four Roses and the large, historic fashion houses she admires are both rooted in history. “From the way they approach their different mashbills, to the different combinations of the bourbons and the barrels that they use, there are so many different intricate techniques that go into it,” Van Duser says. Known for its high-quality, non-GMO grains, Four Roses is one of the only bourbon distilleries that combines five proprietary yeast strains with two separate mashbills to craft 10 distinct recipes. “But at the end of the day, you want it to be practical. A stiletto Chelsea boot is sleek and stunning, but it is still something you could wear throughout the day.” Like a Chelsea boot or a cult-classic novel, a Four Roses cocktail never goes out of style.
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This article is sponsored by Four Roses Bourbon.
