The culinary and cultural distance between Austria and Mexico is at least as great as the geographic gap, so how did an Austrian restaurant in Missouri earn a reputation for great margaritas?
The secret is fresh-squeezed lime juice, according to Scott Beskow, who manages the Wunderbar at Grünauer in Kansas City, Missouri. “We’re an Austrian restaurant known for our margaritas, which is weird. But it’s all because we juice them to order.”
The Wunderbar, located inside Grünauer but branded and licensed separately, is known for its fresh handcrafted cocktails. Beskow, who worked for over a decade as a corporate trainer at McCormick and Schmick's, a chain recognized for its innovative approach to mixology, has a thing for freshly juiced cocktails. He notes, “we sell a lot of beer and Riesling, but those don’t bring people back.” He observes that the bar gets more repeat business from the margaritas, greyhounds, and signature drinks like the “Flüssiger Strudel,” (shown below) made from fresh lemon juice, rum, egg whites and leftover strudel syrup.
Germanic food and fresh juice don’t spring to mind as a natural combination, but Grünauer and Wunderbar have made the marriage work. To begin with, Austrian cuisine or Viennese cuisine, as its known throughout Austria, isn’t as heavy as traditional Germanic food. Sure, there’s schnitzel, but there are also fresh fish dishes, a variety of salads, and “a lot of acidic, light, bright flavors,” as Beskow points out. Despite the unlikely compatibility, he says that most patrons enjoy their Wunderbar cocktails before and after dinner, opting for beer or wine with their entrees.
The decision to brand Wunderbar separately has helped the bar and restaurant, according to Beskow. Although many Wunderbar regulars have never eaten at the restaurant, and there are Grünauer regulars—often locals of German descent—who have never sampled Wunderbar’s fresh cocktails, there is considerable crossover. Wunderbar, which stays open long after neighboring restaurants have closed, has helped introduce new patrons to Grünauer. Conversely, when Grünauer diners wait for a table at the Wunderbar, they see the fresh fruit and become interested in the cocktails offerings.
The lure of beautiful fruit
At least since Adam and Eve, fruit has tempted man, and the big bowl of fragrant limes, lemons, oranges and grapefruit sitting on Beskow’s bar continues the tradition. “People see the bowl of fruit sitting near the hand-held juicer and that will make the decision for them as to what they’ll drink,” he says.
The juicer on the Wunderbar is the 932 manual juicer by Hamilton Beach Commercial, which was first introduced in 1932 and remains one of the company’s best-selling products.
For Beskow, the juicer serves two purposes: form and functionality. The manual juicer adds an air of authenticity, to be sure; it also matches the Wunderbar’s “architectural salvage” style and suits its early nineteenth century building. But more importantly, Beskow says, it’s a remarkably efficient and durable tool, one he discovered during is days at McCormick and Schmick's, where “every bar had at least one if not two Hamilton Beach Commercial 932s behind it.”
“There are different schools of thought on juicing,” Beskow says, “but I think the best place to store the juice is in the fruit.” He doesn’t batch the juices in advance but instead squeezes the fruit for each cocktail individually. His customers, who keep coming back to this Austrian restaurant for their margaritas, seem to taste the difference.
Read the recipe for Wunderbar’s Flüssiger Strudel cocktail
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