Meet Jeremy Le Blanche, beverage director and lead mixologist at Thyme Bar,
a mixology-centric speakeasy located beneath a French patisserie on 23rd Street in Manhattan’s Flatiron district. Le Blanche is a French-born mixologist who developed his skills by training in great bars across the globe, most notably the Bluebird Chelsea, German Gymnasium, and The Gibson in London, and the 2-Michelin starred Anne Sophie Pic of the Beau-Rivage Palace in Switzerland.
Le Blanche brought his mesmerizing mixology chops to New York in 2019, where he developed the summer cocktail menu-pairing experience at Queensyard in New York’s Hudson Yards before being tapped to open Thyme Bar. This was March 2020, just days before the pandemic lockdown. Over a year later, Thyme Bar is finally open for business, and Le Blanche’s insanely imaginative cocktails already have the cocktail community abuzz.
“We don’t just make drinks here; we create experiences,” says Le Blanche. “Our goal at Thyme Bar is to disconnect my guests from the outside world and make them feel like they walked into a lush forest by providing those aromas and flavors, which, as the name Thyme Bar suggests, is based on botanical flowers.”
Case-in-point is the Primrose and Rye, a whiskey sour-inspired cocktail featuring mint-infused whiskey, cherry wine reduction, and cornsilk-smoked maple syrup. The drink is presented in a robin’s egg-colored primrose vase on a smoldering “bird nest” of more cornsilk. It sounds over the top, but the elaborate presentation is not just theater. Everything in (and around) the glass serves to tie the cocktail together in taste, aroma, and visual stimulation. Here is how he makes it.
What You’ll Need
1 oz Mint infused rye whiskey (For a home variation, drop a few mint leaves into your shaker and muddle gently)
¼ oz Maple syrup smoked with cornsilk
1 oz Lemon Juice
¾ oz Cherry wine reduction (combine wine and cherries and cook until reduced 75%)
How to Make It: Pour whiskey, maple syrup, Cherry wine, and lemon juice into a shaker. Shake for 5-7 seconds, then double strain. Pour the cocktail into the primrose glass and place in the center of the smoking cornsilk.
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