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A cocktail is never just a cocktail. A cocktail, particularly one inventively conceived and expertly crafted, embodies what it represents: the good life. The right drink provides an instant departure from the mundane, the perfunctory, the trite – and an elevated cocktail is never any of those things. An elevated cocktail is elevation itself. Few know this as well as Master Sommelier and mixologist Fred Dex. After two decades of expanding his knowledge and perfecting his craft in New York City, Dex was recruited to bring his expertise to the Playboy Club New York. Now he talks about making the fantasy a fantastical reality.
Are wine and cocktails your longtime passion?
This is the story. I love to drink, you know. I love to have fun. And I like to party. I’m very social. I’m very gregarious in that way. I tried out college and that lasted about a semester. Then I got into the restaurant business. I was a waiter-bartender. I learned about wine. And I figured out that I knew a little bit about wine, I got a little bit more respect from the guests at the table, and I also made more money. My tips increased. My sales increased and my respect at the table increased. So I bought a wine book at the behest of a friend and studied it. All of a sudden life changed.
It opened up a whole new world.
A whole new world. Knowledge is power, you know? It’s not cliché. It’s true. Those who hold knowledge are able to progress further than others who don’t take knowledge. So I learned about wine and it started opening a lot of different doors for me. I started getting jobs at higher-end restaurants. I started to be able to work in wine cellars putting bottles away and doing all the grunt work and moving cases around and stocking bars and so on. Then I found out that there was something called a Master Sommelier. I enrolled into the program, moved to New York and started working in high-end restaurants like Daniel, Gramercy Tavern, Jean-Georges. I spent my early twenties basically working in the top restaurants in New York City, just grinding it out. I would work in the wine cellar in the morning, stock bottles in the afternoon, wait tables and bartend at night. And just rinse and repeat.
What was the end goal?
To become a buyer. Then once you become a buyer-sommelier, you’re the head guy, so it’s the chef and you. You collaborate. I worked with a really great chef named Laurent Tourondel. I was his wine muse. We opened one restaurant, then a second. From there, we opened 15 restaurants all over the country. Then I decided it was enough and I said I’m going to do my own thing.
For the last decade, I’ve been a consultant. That’s afforded me all kinds of cool stuff. Like if I had a “real” job, I wouldn’t be here with you. So I’m the beverage consultant for the Playboy Club. How fucking cool is that? What gets cooler than that? Why do you think it’s so cool? It’s the Playboy Club. I mean, when you’re a teenage boy, Playboy is everything. I think the first time I ever saw a naked woman was Dorothy Stratten in Playboy. I was 10 or 11. I was like, “Oh!” The cliché with Playboy is “I buy it for the articles.” Actually, I used to read the articles. They would always interview the most important, timely people, whether it was the most famous photographer at the time or most famous artist at the time. I remember reading the article in Playboy and like I think it was in my friend’s dad’s house. And he’s like, “Dude, you can’t touch my dad’s Playboy.” “I’m going to read about Wade Boggs.” He was like, “You’re not looking at the pictures? What’s wrong with you? I’m like, “I don’t know. This is fascinating.”
I think it’s that high-low mix that’s helped Playboy endure for 65 years.
There’s a complete dichotomy, a juxtaposition of pure beauty and pleasure and then boom, there’s serious political pieces and dig-in articles.
How does the Club element come into play for you?
The Club aspect to me is lifestyle, right? I did a lot of reading up on the Clubs back in the day. This is where people went to see each other. This is where people went to socialize. This is where people went to see their friends. It wasn’t just about Bunnies. It was about: “I’ve made it. I have a lifestyle and I’m going to go drink some martinis with my friends and like laugh and have a good time.”
And how does that vision translate to the drinks you’ve designed?
I have a drink called Decadence. It’s with bourbon and it’s a spin on the Manhattan. The drink is just decadent. When you taste it, it’s unctuous and voluptuous. Even when you pour it out of the cocktail glass, you can see the texture, almost like satin. Like pouring a ribbon.
Part of this is being respectful of the past but not obvious. You want that level of sophistication. If I walk into the Playboy Club, I’m going to order a martini or Old-Fashioned or say, this riff on the Manhattan. I like variations on classics. I like richness. I like things with texture.
Do you think it’s blasphemous to order a vodka martini? Do you believe real martinis strictly have gin?
There’s two sides of that tale, right? The original martini is gin and if you talk to the purists, you know, you get that polemical piece. I’m in the camp of giving the guests what they want. But at the same time, it’s about offering some other roads to travel. Sometimes, you’re like, “Hey I’m going this way,” Then you get to a crossroad and you’re like, “There’re some flowers over there. That looks pretty. I’m going to take a left instead. Let’s check that out.” And maybe you have a new life experience.
Beverage is a great example of that. The idea is to have everything that everybody wants, but at the same time have some subversiveness, to offer that moment when they say, “Wow, I never knew I would have liked that.”Clients don’t necessarily come in as the experts. They want to be enlightened and informed.
Do you have a margarita on the menu?
There is a pretty cool drink. It’s basically a margarita smashed up into what’s traditionally called a South Side. So I use the cucumber mint, one part of that. One part of tequila. One part of ginger, canton ginger which is a cool liqueur. Lemon juice mint. It’s shaken, pulverized and just strained out and it’s got this beautiful glow. It’s an electric cocktail. It’s bright, vibrant and fresh.
I have another drink I’m calling Club Diablo for right now. It’s mezcal and tequila mixed. It’s not too powerful. I’ve found what I do with a lot of drinks is stack. The menu is super-clean but super-complex, and that’s the trick. Like how a gymnast makes something spin around in the air and they stick the landing? That’s kind of my style.
The best things are often deceptively simple, or deceivingly complex. That’s part of the fun of going out.
The expectation should always be delivered via the experience. You come to a place like this to almost be outside yourself. You’re in a whole new world. Once you walk through that door, it’s not you who’s in there.
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