Passion fruit & Jalapeño Margarita. Fiery and delicious!

Cocktails! So sweet! So delicious! Occasionally sickly! And sometimes suspiciously low on booze!  Yep, cocktails are a hit and miss endeavour. If you’re lucky, you’ll find one that has a sublime and interesting mix of flavours, a proper alcoholic kick and doesn’t cost a million billion pounds.  One of these rare places is The Octagon Bar in the Clarence; and another is Fallon & Byrne, which has just started serving cocktails in its top floor restaurant.

We’re big fans of Fallon & Byrne here at CheapEats: their ground floor hot meal counter is one of the best cheap eats in the city, the fish stew served in their basement is mind-blowing and their top floor set menu is reliably great.  We were recently invited to try out their cocktails and were very impressed with them too.   The cocktail menu includes classics such as Mojitos, Cosmopolitans, Sazeracs and Martinis; but also a few original creations.

I was blown away by the Passion fruit & Jalapeño Margarita: jalapeño-infused tequila, passion fruit, mint, lemon juice, served in a rocks glass with crushed ice.  The jalapeno tequila was properly hot, and while passionfruit can sometimes be sickly and overpowering, it worked beautifully here.  We also tried the Exchequer Street Fizz – Absolut Mandarin, elderflower cordial, lemon juice, topped with sparkling water, served over ice in a tall glass – and it was refreshing and lovely.

The beauty part is that these cocktails (€10 each) are two for one all night on Mondays and Tuesdays.  It would be a great treat with their set menu, or you could just skip dinner and go get giddy hammered. Hurray!