City of Phoenix announces first official signature cocktail

PHOENIX — In partnership with Visit Phoenix, the city of Phoenix collaborated with local cocktail industry professionals to create Phoenix’s first signature drink.

Mayor Kate Gallego, inspired by regional beverages like New York City’s Manhattan cocktail, set on a mission to bring one to Phoenix. The city put on the “Spirit of Phoenix” cocktail contest, inviting local bars and mixologists to create drinks with the goal of impressing judges to earn their beverage the title of “The Phoenix.”

Nicole Long from the local Mexican restaurant Santo Arcadia won the contest. Here’s the recipe for Phoenix’s official signature cocktail — “The Phoenix.”

Shake in tin with:

• 2 ounces of reposado Milagro
• 1 ounces of Chiltepines mesquite honey syrup
• 1 ounces of lemon juice
• 1/4 ounce of prickly pear
• Garnish: Dehydrated lemon and peppers

“The Santo Arcadia mixologist crafted a unique cocktail recipe that was selected as the cocktail most representative of our bold and diverse city,” officials said in an article. “With homemade Chiltepin mesquite honey syrup, prickly pear fruit, and lemon juice from lemon’s picked by Long, her cocktail is a true garden-to-glass experience.”

Contestants who participated in the contest had only a handful of rules. According to the article, “they needed to live in a Phoenix zip code, the cocktail had to be made via a “traditional” bar technique, a maximum of three house made ingredients could be used, no more than two ounces used for the base spirit, one full ounce had to be Milagro Tequila, and local and indigenous ingredients were encouraged.”

With those guidelines in place, contestants had cocktails judged in round one by industry experts. The judges selected a total of 20 cocktails from online submissions to be tasted. From the 20 selected drinks, the field was narrowed to the top four.

From there, the top four cocktails were made available at multiple locations throughout the Valley in rounds two and three. The public had the chance to taste and decide the top two cocktails.

After narrowing the list to two, the final cocktails were voted upon throughout May. Long’s beverage was the last drink standing and earned the name “The Phoenix.”