#99: Kuneho

The Bar

Kuneho. 1600 E 6th St, Austin, TX 78702

Visited 7/26/17 @ 7:30pm.

UPDATE: Kuneho has closed.

The Drink

Cheeky warbler. Suntory Toki whiskey, Blanco tequila, yellow chartreuse, honey butter gardenia syrup, orange, lemon, absinthe, passionflower sprig. $15.

As Kuneho is relatively famous for their craft cocktails, despite only recently opening, it would have been a crime not to order the craftiest of them all as determined by my bartender. Wonderful choice: this was one of the smoothest cocktails I've ever had, to the point where I would have bet money on this having some egg white in the mix. The combination of whiskey and tequila might give some people pangs of incipient hangovers, but the mix was quite congenial. Suntory itself is a global behemoth, and the Toki brand is one of its blended whiskies. You can't really taste it, since there are so many other flavors in here, but they all blend to a really creamy, harmonious whole. Sometimes you get a cocktail that you want to savor like a meal, and this was one of them. I would call this a high point in cocktail-drinking, except for the very next one I ordered....

Rosso G&T. Genius Old Highborn gin, cannonau tonic, Topo Chico. $12.

I loved the last cocktail so much I decided to order a second, and because it was one of the greatest gin and tonics I've ever had, I decided to include it here as well. The first thing you're probably thinking when you look at it is "Why does a gin and tonic look like a watered-down Bloody Mary?" That's because the tonic is infused with cannonau grapes, a variety of Grenache red grapes primarily produced in Sardinia.You can read all kinds of those amusingly dubious articles about how wines made with those grapes make you live longer; marketing nonsense aside, the resulting tonic was absolutely delicious, with a rich wine flavor that went incredibly well with the gin. Old Highborn is a product of the Genius distillery from right here in Austin, and I can vouch for how smooth the gin is on its own, with some really tasty botanicals. With the tonic, it was incredible. This might in all seriousness be the best gin and tonic in Austin, and if it isn't, someone needs to tell me where a better one is pronto.

The Crew

Travis, Aaron, Hannah, Kaylee, Michael.

Notes

Kuneho is another Paul Qui product, which very recently replaced the modestly-named Qui. The name is Tagalog for "rabbit", which presumably indicates that there's some sort of continuity between the last restaurant and this new "concept" (I hate that term - why can't a restaurant just be a place to get food?). I never ate at Qui, and we didn't eat here either, although I have been to Uchi and Uchiko, but Kuneho looked of a piece with the new wave of high-end restaurants washing up on the shores of Sixth Street: classy, elegant, expensive. The bar has a very carefully curated bottle selection, and the rest of the restaurant has plenty of wood paneling and minimalist design accents to "enhance the value-add proposition", as they say. The bar section itself is not very large, but the service is excellent, and the bartender was funny, helpful, and quite good for having only worked there for a month and a half. I don't think I'll ever make enough money to be the kind of person who comes to Qui frequently, but their cocktail selection is so good that between our party we tried every single one on the list.