If work could always be this fun...
Last night we had the pleasure of "working" at the Taste of the Nation event, the annual fancy food fundraiser/high-class drunkfest for Share Our Strength, the hunger relief organization. The template is a familiar one: A high-tone venue is selected--in this case the Four Seasons--and several dozen of the best restaurants in town present a bite-sized morsel of their food, often on a crisp of some kind. A major booze purveyor or two (this time Republic, who represents Patron, Stoli, among others) poneys up some bar supplies and the upper crust pay big money to eat and shmooze and support a nonprofit, but most importantly to drink.
Usually as a coffee vendor I do not have much to do at these events because people want the booze. I get a small rush at the end of the evening when people are getting ready to leave, but for the rest of the evening I have plenty of time to eat and drink and schmooze with the WASPS. Last night was an entirely different story, however, because I have changed my formula. Realizing that people come for the booze, I decided several events ago to befriend the booze sponsor and work their product into a coffee drink (a Cofftail, a cafftail?). During the (supposedly) cooler Fall when most of these events take place, I have no trouble adding booze to hot coffee drinks. There are numerous variations on these. The problem though is that a spiked cappuccino does not offer much in the way of refreshment on a hot and humid August evening such as last night.
So I perused the selections that were available to me. I should say that sharing a table with the Patron people is a fortuitous fate indeed, since I had numerous bottles of Patron, Patron XO coffee liqueur, Patron Citronge, and Pyrat Rum at my disposal (this is a much better selection than the countless flavored rums and vodkas that usually get donated to events such as these.) We got to work shaking up a cocktail that would be a contrast to what the girls next to us were serving, mostly Patron "cosmos" and Patron "mojitos." I use quotation marks because I feel that if you change the base spirit you could probably rename the drink, but as I learned myself at that event, the use of the familiar standard cocktail name is a source of comfort to these patrons who are more affluent than they are adventurous.
We made two drinks that were a hit among Austin's finest, and I'm not sure if that speaks well or ill of this drink. For the moment we will assume the former.
The first cocktail was a creamy concoction that we dubbed the Mexical Freetail, in honor of the famed urban bat colony that takes residence under the bridge a few yards from the hotel where this event took place. It is basically a chocolatey Patron White Russian, a description which I realized was more appealing to our audience than the clever name we came up with.

Mexican Freetail
1/2 oz Patron Silver
1/2 oz Patron XO
1/2 oz 1883 Chocolate syrup (or similar, like Torani or Monin)
1 oz Half & Half
1 oz Cold-brewed coffee concentrate (pre-diluted Toddy process coffee; chilled espresso would work)
Shake with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.