Jessi Pereira
Ruins’ New Frozen Cocktail Will Not Deceive, Threaten Or Hurt You. Instead, It Aims To Introduce You To A New Place You’ve Yet To Explore.
Welcome to The Cocktease, where we aim to weekly present you a tasteful preview and review of a cocktail in DFW that deserves your attention, mouth and monetary support. For a good time, here’s something that might fit your personal tastes, because when I sip, you sip, we sip.
Name: Death By Cain.
Where to get it: Ruins (2653 Commerce Street, Deep Ellum).
Cost: $14.
When to order: When you’re roaming Deep Ellum for something new, or when you want to offer your questionable brother a delicious peace offering.
Ingredients: Paranubes rum, cachaça, guanabana, mint syrup and lime juice, garnished with mint and a Szechuan button.
Pairs well with: The start of the night, middle of the night or whenever you want to impress a picky date with a surprisingly good frozen drink that goes down like minty candy.
A little more to sip on: Ruins co-owner Peter Novotny was motivated by a frozen cocktail book suggested by fellow mixologist Austin Millspaugh when he was coming up with his bar’s new take on a frozen mojito.
But he didn’t have to look outside his own backyard for inspiration.
If you don’t already know Ruins for its cocktails, then chances are you may know it for its phenomenal food, or for how it’s become one of Deep Ellum’s great venues for local live music and parties alike.
But, as Deep Ellum drinkers have come to learn over the course of this spot’s last two years of operations, you really shouldn’t sleep on the talents of Novotny’s bar staff, which has recently replaced its once-popular frozen mezcal cocktail (called the Wall-A-Rita) with this new concoction that’s well-deserving of the spotlight once reserved for Ruins’ former frozen champ.
First of all, let’s talk presentation: In its frozen state, the Death by Cain looks like a slightly darker and more sinister — if also perhaps somewhat typical — frozen margarita. Of course, it’s not that at all, but that’s the only way in which you might feel betrayed by this cocktail, which despite its menacing name is really quite fun.
Forget a tease. Let’s see it in action.
That’s a good thing: Simply asking for a mojito in this day and age feels too basic, too predictable, too easy — all things that Death By Cain is not.
Rather, this drink takes the elements of a classic mojito (rum, sugar and lime) and turns it into something deceptively delicious. It perfectly meshes two elements: unique umami creaminess and a tarte funkiness from all of the herbs. It’s familiar enough to keep you sipping for more, but it’s also packed with newness; you’ve tasted some of it before, but all of it never.
Immediately upon the first swig, the back of your jaw experiences a burst only reserved for when your taste buds taste something truly tangy– and, just like that, it’ll hook ya.
The Death By Cain is a clutch order for those hankering for a good frozen drink, but also wanting to get a little more adventurous without deviating too far from tradition.
It’s really clever in how it balances the old, the new and the unforeseen. It’s surprising, but not completely alarming and/or gimmicky, which are two elements that are often serve as the Achilles heels of ambitious new cocktails.
Yeah, you can always just go ahead and order a regular mojito if you just want to enjoy yourself in an expected way. Or? You can order a Death By Cain and truly live.
Photos by Ruins’ Haley Merritt and Jessi Pereira.