WASHINGTON — There’s no shortage of bars and restaurants experimenting with creative cocktails in the D.C. area, but one mixologist is giving Washingtonians a taste of something unfamiliar to many: Middle East-inspired libations.
Chris Hassaan Francke, 30, is co-founder of The Green Zone, a bar popping up at Black Whiskey in Logan Circle on Fridays through Oct. 24.
At The Green Zone, Francke crafts his own bitters, syrups and liqueurs to create drinks that mirror the flavors he’s experienced while visiting family, studying abroad and traveling for work in the Middle East.
“The Middle East has great food and also great non-alcoholic drinks, and one day I sort
of thought, ‘Hey, what if I combined the cocktails that I already like making with
these Middle Eastern flavors?'”
The White Russian and Black Russian first inspired Francke to give traditional
cocktails a Middle Eastern spin. He doesn’t care for either, but thought he could be
swayed by a variation that tasted more like Turkish coffee. So he made a Turkish coffee
liqueur and used Pisco and cardamom bitters in place of vodka.
“In the end you have a drink that tastes almost exactly like Turkish coffee. And that
was the very first one,” says Francke, who works as a consultant at the World Bank in
Middle Eastern private sector development when he isn’t testing out new drink
combinations.
Francke says he got into crafting his own cocktails about the age he started drinking.
At the time, he wasn’t very interested in beer, so he started learning how to make his
own drinks. Now, The Green Zone is where Francke showcases all he’s learned over
the years.
“We buy all of the alcohol, but everything else that goes in is more or less homemade,”
says Francke, who adds that he doesn’t share the recipes for his bitters and syrups,
which are kept in Arabic-labeled bottles. “It’s sort of to just give an air of mystique
and authenticity.”
The menu is also written in Arabic — but you don’t need to worry if you aren’t fluent; drink
descriptions are detailed in English. On the frequently changing menu, Francke serves
everything from Lebanese wines to drinks such as the Sekanito, a Persian twist on a
mojito that uses white rum, sour mint syrup, cucumber and soda; and the Ottoman Times,
a mixture of rye, pomegranate syrup and Arabian bitters.
The Saz’iraq is Francke’s nod to the Sazerac cocktail; it contains Francke’s Arabian
bitters in place of the traditional Peychaud’s and a homemade Middle Eastern-inspired
herbal liqueur that’s used instead of an Absinthe rinse.
“When you combine that with the bitters — and it’s the same rye whiskey that’s used in
Sazerac — it tastes familiar but quite different at the same time,” Francke says.
The Green Zone doesn’t serve beer, but Francke says he has a few creative work-arounds
to that.
For happy hour, he serves vodka or rum mixed with a few standard non-alcoholic
ingredients from the Middle East — including pomegranate juice and the British soda
Vimto, which Francke says is popular in many Arab countries.
“The other is with a Lebanese-made, non-alcoholic beer with mild fruit flavors, which
comes off as a malty soda, but is less sweet. If somebody wants something simple, like
a beer, this is the best we can offer them,” he says.
The Green Zone has been up and running for two Fridays (with two more to go) and so
far, Francke says the interest has been growing. He says the crowd has been very
diverse, describing the group as “sort of a D.C. yuppie crowd, a bit of an
international crowd, a few hipsters,” and some Palestinians and Lebanese.
“There are just tons of Arabs coming in, really excited about this idea,” says Francke
who is Iraqi but has a lot of family in Lebanon. “It’s interesting because these Arab
customers that come, what I’m giving them are flavors that are familiar to them, but in
an entirely new presentation.”
Even though the Green Zone has only two more Fridays before it hangs up its bottles at Black
Whiskey, Francke is positive that the momentum will lead him somewhere else. He says he
hopes to open a fulltime space in the near future.
“There was a huge response last week and people seem to really like it,” Francke says.
“There seems to be a lot of positive interest.”
