Around Town: Mixing monkeys and Metaxa

What do monkeys, dehydrated puffer fish and 80-year-old Greek brandy have in common? All were present last week at La Casa Argentina, when Metaxa and their Czech distributor Maxxium Czech offered an exclusive degustation of AEN Spyros, an 80-year-old distillation that is Metaxa's newest offering, and the most expensive Metaxa cocktail in Europe at 3,600 Kč ($162).

Before the capital cocktail's unveiling, guests were treated to a specially designed four-course meal with accompanying drinks. Chef Jaroslav Zahálka and master bartender Martin Kazbunda teamed up to design the menu, which will soon be offered to the public at the price of 4,000 Kč - decidedly not dining on the dime. It remains to be seen how popular the menu and the cocktail will be in these times of financial fatalism, but, as Henry Ford said, "Quality means doing it right when no one is looking."

As the only English-speaking journalist present, I maintained my most personable state of aloofness, occasionally agreeing with an encouraging comment to Zahálka, nodding knowingly when Kazbunda mentioned "molecular mixology," and joining fellow guests in laughing empathetically at the journalist to my right who was allergic to shellfish.

"It would be very bad if I ate the shrimp," he said.

The food was delicious, the conversation warm and the atmosphere elegant. But we were all waiting for the unveiling of the Spyros cocktail, designed by Kazbunda. A pamphlet seemingly rubbed with gold leaf listed the drink's main ingredients: fresh flowers, Metaxa AEN, fresh juices, a drop of grapefruit bitters and even wasabi. After caramel flan and a few sips of "Medtaxa" - a concoction of Metaxa, honey and milk - guests were whisked downstairs past the monkey cage into an adjoining cigar bar where Kazbunda was waiting to prepare the first publicly mixed AEN Spyros after months of developing the recipe.

Kazbunda worked with precise pomp, grinding fresh flowers with a mortar and pestle then slowly adding the other ingredients before unveiling one of only 1,888 existing bottles of AEN. The brandy looked dark and rich through gilded glass. Most of the guests stood dumbfounded as Kazbunda worked, but the craftsman was at no loss for words about his creation.

 "I created a drink with a modern face, a delicious taste and a complex aroma. AEN Spyros on one level has a lot of intensive tastes mingling, but they mix beautifully, and, combined, they have a very mild finish," he said.

The equation for the most expensive Metaxa cocktail on the Continent is not as difficult as it sounds, especially when you start with brandy that sells for more than 2,500 Kč a shot. It must strike some as blasphemy to mix an 80-year-old brandy in a concoction of flowers, Japanese horseradish and fruit juice, but it's this kind of audacity that separates the Henry Fords from the Sam Henrys.

So, how did the AEN Spyros taste? After a full afternoon of serious Metaxa drinking, I mean, degustation, I found it difficult to describe the complex taste, but certainly it was distinct, and certainly unlike anything I'd tasted before, or likely will taste again.

When the festivities came to an end and I stepped out to Dlouhá street, the bells of St. Nicholas were chiming in a dusky glimmer, and I couldn't help but feel like Zorba, strutting through the ramshackle streets of Crete. The world seemed OK, and passionately so.

Stephan Delbos can be reached at
sdelbos@praguepost.com