Sunday, November 09, 2008
Food, "Behind the Bar"

A walk in the park

Talking shop with Whiskey Park bartender Dinah Peña

By Hope S. Philbrick

    When a mojito created by Dinah Peña won an award at a recent mixology contest hosted by Bacardi at Four Seasons Atlanta, The Sunday Paper was intrigued. We caught up with Peña to learn more about her and what she’s mixing up at Whiskey Park.

Q What got you interested in bartending?
A I have a culinary background and sort of leapt into bartending. I graduated from the Art Institute of Atlanta in 2001. Bartending is sort of like culinary because you’re working with different flavors, but it’s more social than cooking. That’s why I got into it about three years ago. I started at the Globe, and then I worked at a couple of other places, including the Spotted Dog when it was open and Lotus when it opened. Now I’m at Whiskey Park.

Tell me about Whiskey Park.
It’s at the W Hotel in Midtown. It’s part of the Gerber Group—they have 11 other spots in other cities including New York, L.A., Chicago, Boston, New Orleans, and Mexico City. They usually open up in W Hotels. It’s an ultra-chic lounge. It’s really pretty inside, with a different vibe. It’s a chill lounge, with a nightclub feel. There’s a bar, a lounge area and a VIP area called the Vault that’s a separate room in the back.

Congratulations on your performance at the Bacardi Mojito Masterclass.
Thanks. It was a really interesting class. We didn’t realize that there are so many wrong things you can do with a mojito. At one point, they gave us a lot of ingredients to work with so we could create our own mojito. I thought it would be interesting to make a cool berry and citrus combination in a drink, so I used blackberries and strawberries in addition to the standard lime and mint, and chose the Bacardi Limón rum, so there were two different berry and two different citrus elements.

In the first round of judging, they picked someone from each table, and I was surprised to be picked from my table—I was in the middle of talking to a couple of friends when the judge made his decision. Next, all the table finalists were judged and I moved onto the finals. It came down to me and a guy [from Liquid Chefs]. We did a muddle-off. He got first place and won a golf bag; I got second and got a Bliss spa package. I haven’t had a chance to use it yet; I’ve been so busy.
   
We do a lot of mojitos at Whiskey Park. Our strawberry mojito is our most popular cocktail.

What are your favorite cocktails to make?
I like to make martinis and different kinds of shots. It’s cool. This is the first bar I’ve worked at where we have a lot of different ingredients to work with like basil, mint, ginger teas, mangos. It’s fun working here because there are so many ingredients I can use. We make everything from scratch, so we muddle strawberries instead of using purees, and we make our own sour mix. We use a lot of fresh ingredients. The menu is seasonal to some extent, but not all of the drinks.
   
New for this season, we have some saki drinks. We will be using ginger, clementine, grapefruit and basil. We have a real good grapefruit basil martini. I’m not a big gin drinker, but we use Bombay Sapphire in that, and it’s real smooth.

Popular foods come into play when making drinks. Blueberry martinis are popular now because blueberries are a super berry with health benefits. Grapefruit was a big thing. Now it’s açai.
It’s fun to make different drinks. I love vodka because it’s very easy to work with, and I also like to drink vodka. Belvedere is my favorite, because it’s real smooth and has a slight vanilla hint to it. I drink it on the rocks or up with a lemon twist. SP
Whiskey Park is located at W Atlanta Midtown, 188 14th St. NE. For more information, call 404-892-6000.