It's a rough job but someone has to do it: East has taken one for the team and taste-tested the season's most delicious-sounding beverages in search of the ultimate, definitive cocktail for the summer of 2024. We found it at Townline BBQ, where Wainscott and Sagaponack meet.
It's a fresh, icy, special-attraction called a strawberry mezcalita, made with Dos Hombres, the mezcal brand cooked up in 2020 by the actors Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame. The starring ingredient is a vinegar shrub made with strawberries grown in the kitchen garden at Nick and Toni's, the roadhouse's tony older-sister restaurant in East Hampton. It also has fresh lime juice, a little agave, a shot of chili-pepper liqeur called Giffard Pimente D'Espelette, and a skewered garnish of dried strawberries (which we recommend swizzling into the drink for rehydration purposes).
We consider the price, $15, fair for the East End, especially given the stellar quality of the ingredients. With the strawberry crop nearly gone, gone, gone-o, we pronounce this the moment for the strawberry mezcalita.